


astra inclinant, sed non obligant

by lisa6



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: AU, AU: Gansey doesn't save Ronan, Adam-Centric, Dream Pack, M/M, Minor Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent Friendship, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, dream pack!ronan, the dream pack are also boys who deserve better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2018-11-03 02:26:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10957746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisa6/pseuds/lisa6
Summary: AU where, after Niall Lynch's death, Gansey did not manage to save Ronan.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanted to write an au with dream pack!ronan bc i love the dream pack and think they deserve more. so do adam parrish and ronan lynch. and everyone else.
> 
>  
> 
> (sorry if there are any grammar/spelling mistakes. i'm german and still learning english. if there are any, feel free to let me know so i can correct them asap x)

 

Adam lets out a sigh when his eyes start to burn and the countless words in front of him become a blur. He blinks a few times, ignoring the familiar way his eyes sting when he does — like it's another night which he spends finishing homework after a six-hour shift at Boyd's.

He closes his book and leans his back against the booth's soft backrest as he fixates his gaze on Gansey, who sits across from him, bent over one of the tomes he'd brought and holding a slice of already cold, strangely rubbery pepperoni pizza in one hand. Gansey has the luxury to always have enough money and food at his disposal that it doesn't matter if he becomes too engrossed in articles and stories about Glendower to remember to eat. Adam tries to ignore the familiar sting pricking his heart at this thought. He is a boy with a heart so greedy, lonely and envious that if anyone saw its insides, they'd be offended.

He's so tired that it takes him twenty seconds to muster up the motivation to glance at his wristwatch, and his stomach churns when he sees how late it is — 10:21 pm. Exhaustion seeps deeper into his bones, making his body feel numb with it. The mere thought of having to get up in seven hours, cycle all the way through Henrietta over to Boyd's, and then spend at least nine hours in the suffocating heat of the garage is making him weary. 

Gansey looks up at him, going still with the slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. His slightly messy brown hair (Gansey has the habit of running his hands through his hair at minute intervals when he's concentrating) and his broad shoulders (covered by a bright yellow polo shirt which Blue had scowled at when they'd entered Nino's two hours ago) are backlit by a neon pink sign that reads _OPEN_ and trims the large window behind their booth. Gansey pushes his wire-rimmed glasses higher up the bridge of his straight nose.

"Adam? Are you all right?" 

Adam is all right. He's tired, and exhausted, and there's a bruise over his ribs which burns every time he moves or takes a deep breath, but he's fine. 

"Yeah. I should get going, though." 

For the first time since they've been at Nino's Noah averts his eyes from Gansey's iPhone to focus on Adam instead. He's been trying out Snapchat filters ever since they've arrived, giggling and showing them to Blue every time she passes their table. 

Gansey doesn't even care that Noah isn't really interested in his search for Glendower today. Every time Blue smiles at his phone's camera and Noah takes a picture, Gansey blushes and touches his wrist as if to check his pulse. It's obvious Gansey thinks he's being super subtle but one time, just after Blue's left to refill another customer's glass of iced tea, Noah mocks him by touching his own wrist — although the mocking gets a little lost when 1) Gansey, oblivious as always, doesn't notice, and 2) Noah sinks further down into the booth's cushions when there's no sign of a heartbeat to be found in his wrist.

"Do you have work in the morning?" asks Gansey, but he's already beginning to pack up. "It's pretty late. You can sleep at Monmouth, if you want to. It'd be more conve—"

Adam knows what Gansey's really asking: Is your dad going to be pissed because you're too late? Are you sure you should go home? Why won't you just move in with me? And while Adam appreciates Gansey's concern and friendship, he's annoyed because Gansey knows the answers to those questions; he knows what Adam would say if he asked them out loud. It's an argument they have had a million times already, and Adam is not in the mood to go another week without talking to Gansey because of things they said and only half meant in their anger. 

He knows Noah isn't either because he is just about to flicker out of sight, already half-transparent and smudgy around the edges and curves of his body, when Gansey's eyes suddenly fixate on something behind them.

He grows rigid, clenches his jaw, has fire in his hazel eyes. Then, just a moment later, it's all gone again, replaced by a small, barely-there smile and even breathing; he's put on the Richard Campbell Gansey III mask.

Noah sighs, becomes more solid again, and slowly puts Gansey's phone down on the table.

"Oh, no," Gansey whispers, the words flitting through his teeth, and squares his shoulders, presses his lips together. And then he's up on his feet, leaning against the edge of their table — the epitome of an Aglionby student; chin tilted, a quirk to one corner of his mouth, a glistening in his eyes that screams _you've got nothing on me, and you never will_. 

Behind the counter, Blue's eyebrows disappear in her bangs. Unlike Noah, Adam can't read minds. He's still pretty sure that whatever it is Blue's thinking right now, he's thinking the exact same thing.

Noah doesn't turn around to see what's going on — because he doesn't have to —, and Adam doesn't want to because if that's how Gansey behaves, it can only mean one thing.

Adam's conjectures are proved to be true; just a second later, a boy stops in front of Gansey, wearing a loose white tank top, a gold chain around his neck, a slow, filthy smile on his lips. His eyes are light brown around blown pupils, and wild, restless, too clear, too bright. With a loosely-curled fist, he taps the edge of their booth in greeting. Somehow he manages to make even this provocative. 

For as long as Adam can remember he's hated Joseph Kavinsky. 

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Adam looks away from him. It's then that he realizes Kavinsky hasn't come alone: closely behind him, Adam spots three of his best friends.

The first one of them that Adam recognizes is — of course — Prokopenko, a lanky boy with full lips and bleached hair that falls into his mint green eyes but is shaved at the sides. _'Of course'_ because there is a probability of 95 percent that wherever Kavinsky is, Prokopenko is too.

The second one is Swan, unmistakable with his dark skin, the amber in his eyes, the golden septum piercing, the small flesh tunnel in his right earlobe, and the light blue beanie on his head. 

And the last one is Ronan Lynch. He's tall, all lean muscles, high sharp cheekbones and equally sharp ocean blue eyes with long and curled lashes, perfectly shaped brows, straight nose, pink lips, clear skin. His head is shaved, his short hair dark, and there's a tattoo peeking out from under the dark grey hoodie he's wearing, black ink curling around his neck and all the way to the base of his throat.

It's— he's— _god_ , Adam doesn't know. He feels Noah's eyes on him. Noah, who nobody of Kavinsky's gang seems to take notice of.

"Dick," Kavinsky drawls, effectively — and fortunately — jolting Adam out of his train of thoughts. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Kavinsky," Gansey says, voice laced with so much carefully practiced politeness that to everyone who knows what Gansey's genuine politeness sounds like, it'd be borderline coarse.

Kavinsky's grin widens. Prokopenko crosses his arms over his chest and keeps sneaking looks at him, as if he's waiting for something. Swan scratches his underarm absent-mindedly. Ronan just stands there, hands buried in the single pocket in the front of his sweater, head tilted to one side, eyes fixed on something next to Adam.

No, not something. _Someone_. He's looking at Noah. And Noah's looking right back. There's a flicker in those blue, blue eyes of Ronan's, an emotion Adam can't quite make out. It feels intimate though, so he looks away quickly.

"To be honest, Dick, I did think you'd take your dates to nicer places than Nino's," Kavinsky continues with a jerk of his chin in Adam's direction. "Then again, it's not like trailer boy here is used to anything better, is it?"

Adam breathes out through his nose. It's not even the most insulting thing Kavinsky — or anyone else — has ever said to him, but it still stings, and his face still burns. He flexes his fingers and then makes his hands into fists where they rest on his lap under the table, shielded from everyones' eyes. He really wants to ignore that potshot. He really wants to remember that it's Kavinsky, and that nothing that leaves Kavinsky's mouth should have any effect on him.

He wills himself to relax the moment he realizes what he's doing, the moment he feels fury claw its way up his spine. He swallows it back down and bites the inside of his tongue. 

Noah's hand lands on his arm, and Adam catches Ronan's eyes follow the action.

"Is there anything you want?" Gansey asks, his old money accent tangled in each of his words, soft and sticky, like melted honey. Gansey is as good with his voice as he is with his words.

Kavinsky grins, obviously pleased with the direction this conversation is headed in. 

"Just wanted to catch up." But while he says that, one of Kavinsky's hands curls around Ronan's shoulder, his fingertips pressing through the fabric of Ronan's hoodie and into his muscle. It's the unspoken answer to Gansey's question: _I have all I want._ It's a taunt if ever there was one.

Gansey grows rigid next to him, which causes Adam's gaze to dart to him automatically, worried, and Gansey is staring at Kavinsky with the most poorly suppressed fury Adam has ever seen on him. His eyes flicker over to Ronan for a second (Ronan very pointedly peers down at the linoleum covered floor), before they're back on Kavinsky, who is languidly twirling his car keys around the fingers of his free had. Adam notices his bruised knuckles.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Blue scowling at them from where she stands with her lips pursed behind the counter, and Prokopenko standing with his arms hanging by his sides now, hands curled into fists, like he's ready to strike if Gansey made a wrong move. Swan just looks endlessly bored.

Ronan shrugs Kavinsky's hand off. "Let's get the fuck out of here, man."

His voice does not sound the way Adam had imagined it would. It's deep and just a little husky, but it's also clear and hard, curling around the words the way Gansey's voice does, the way rich peoples' voices do.

Normally Adam doesn't ever forget that he's the only one around who isn't filthy rich, but for some reason Ronan doesn't strike him the same way someone like Gansey or Henry Cheng does. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, Adam guesses, because Ronan doesn't do anything to hide the fact that he drives an expensive German car, owns brand-name clothes, spends money on things he doesn't need, and walks around with his head held high and arrogance oozing from every single pore. 

But Ronan Lynch is a rich kid, just like Gansey is. For them, it's not _only_ fancy cars, big houses, weekend trips to an own beach house in Malibu or an apartment in New York City; it's also caring families, dinners at Christmas, and board game parties in the evenings.

Suddenly it's easier to imagine Ronan and Gansey being friends, and harder to imagine them stop being friends. Although, Adam thinks, finding the dead body of one's father and losing one's mother shortly after has the potential to fuck anyone up. 

"Good idea," says Gansey, his eyes meeting Ronan's. The eye contact doesn't last long though; after just a few seconds, Ronan clenches his jaw and turns his head to look at Kavinsky. It's worse than anything he could've said, and Gansey looks like he's just taken a kick to the gut. Ronan looks like he knows this. 

Adam is not a violent person. Tries not to be, at least. But in that moment, he really, really, really wants to punch Ronan Lynch. Before he can do that, though, there's suddenly a presence in the space between him and Gansey. It's Blue. Thank God for Blue. 

"Hey," she chimes in, and puts her hand on Gansey's back, fists the fabric of his shirt, presses her fingertips against his skin, but her eyes are set on Kavinsky. "Are you going to order anything?"

One of Ronan's perfectly shaped eyebrows arches. "Nah, we're off." When nobody moves, he says, voice a little harder, "K, we're off."

Swan lets out a sigh — which sounds more relieved than anything else — and, with two fingers hooked in Prokopenko's collar, he pulls him away with him when he turns around and leaves. 

Kavinsky, because he's apparently come into this world with the intention of being the world's biggest prick and the inability to just shut up, leers at Gansey with a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. 

"A bit of a downgrade, though, don't you think, Dickie? Trailer Trash for princess here? What do the parents say? 'Oh, honey, you're doing charity now, too? That'll look great on your Harvard application.'"

Gansey's eyes flare as they flicker to Ronan. "Really? That's who you're hanging out with now?"

Ronan looks like he wants to say something, but Kavinsky is faster. No wonder, Adam thinks, he's probably pumped with drugs.

"Wanna know what else we do?"

Gansey's expression hardens. Even for Adam — who doesn't give a crap about Kavinsky and his pack of dogs — it's hard not to come up with any assumptions when Kavinsky gives rise to all sorts of speculations. The thought of them together makes the tips of Adam's ears heat up. 

Trying to be discreet, Adam considers Ronan; he's pretty, he really is. He's so pale that his skin is almost translucent, which causes the slightly blue veins adorning the backs of his hands to be a little more prominent than most people's. He has the kind of lips that are both thin and full, with a perfect cupid's bow, their color a soft pink which matches the baby blue of his eyes. 

Adam doesn't know why, but suddenly he is wondering what Ronan would look like flushed, in nothing but his boxers riding low on his narrow hips, cruel mouth quiet for once. Adam's cheeks burn. Which, unfortunately, Lynch seems to register, because he's cocking his head as his gaze drops down to Adam's face, searching — and apparently _finding_ , because a moment later, there's a lazy, only barely-there smile tugging at one corner of his lips and a glistening in his eyes. Eyes, that are framed by long, dark lashes which fan out against his sharp cheekbones when his eyes become a little more heavy-lidded than they were before.

He looks … like an asshole, with that look he's giving him, the way he's pulling his hands out of his pocket, the way he's leaning to the side a bit, the athletic built of his body, the long fingers, the slight flush to his cheeks, the way he still keeps his eyes locked with Adam's. Still, it makes Adam's heart beat faster.

Adam has never thought about any boy this way, but there's no way he can not think about Ronan Lynch like that right now. And the weirdest part is that it doesn't freak him out, not one bit.

Good God, he hopes that just for once, Noah stays out of his thoughts. He doesn't have time to worry about that, though, as Kavinsky is suddenly barking out a laugh. 

"Hey, Dick. Keep an eye on Poor Boy here, yeah? I don't have enough space to take in another one of yours." 

Ronan looks at Kavinsky then, and just like that, Adam's fury returns full force. 

"Come on," Ronan says, pushing Kavinsky and his stupid grin away from their booth. He doesn't look back at Gansey, Blue or Adam, but he does give a little nod in Noah's direction. 

It's only after the door closes behind them that Adam can breathe again.

  
***

  

"Adam! Mind staying an hour longer today?" Boyd asks as he walks into the garage and around Patrick Mitchell's Range Rover, which Adam has worked on three times this month already. If he wasn't so intend on lying low at Aglionby, he'd advise Patrick's parents to spend their money on driving lessons instead of new cars every few months. "Just got a call from some guy saying his car keeps breaking down. I'll pay you double."

Adam looks up, wiping his greasy hands on his bluey. He's exhausted, but he also just had to spend forty-two dollars on new books for school and he wants to pay Gansey back. (He's not dumb enough to think that — just after some Aglionby asshole had pricked holes in his bicycle tire — someone else very conveniently 'lost' a new tire by his parents' double-wide. "Coincidence," Adam had said, because it wasn't, and Gansey had shrugged and looked somewhere else. It's a nice gesture, but Adam doesn't let his friends spend their money on him. And Gansey knows this. They hadn't spoken to each other for three days after that, until one Wednesday morning when Gansey had opened his locker to find the tire squeezed in between his books.) 

"Yeah, sure," Adam says, and Boyd grins at him.  

"Great. Thanks, son. Close up after, will ya? I'm taking the wife out for dinner." 

Dinner, Adam knows, means going to eat at the diner down the street, where you can order three dollar chicken wings, floppy French fries, and sandwiches made a day before. Neither Boyd nor his wife seem to mind, but Adam hates it. Maybe it's arrogant — and maybe he has no right to be — but Boyd's life is Adam's nightmare. When he's as old as Boyd, he wants to be out of Henrietta, he wants to be able to afford to take girls out to nice places, and he wants to see something. He just wants …  _more_.

But right now, Adam doesn't have 'more'. He doesn't have anything. So he just nods, gives Boyd a thin smile, and mumbles, "Good. Have fun."

Boyd, because he doesn't know any better, slaps a hand on Adam's shoulder in fatherly fashion, which. Well. Adam really doesn't need any more slaps in fatherly fashion. So he flinches away and nearly trips over his feet in the process, tying to ignore the furious pace his heart has been shocked into. 

Within two seconds, Boyd's face goes through several emotions; at first it's surprise, then shock, then something like pity. And fuck. _Fuck_. Adam doesn't need anybody's fucking pity. 

His teeth are clenched until the door clicks shut behind Boyd, but his face keeps burning. Adam doesn't know if it's anger or embarrassment he's feeling — lately, they feel all too similar — so he tries to distract himself by working on as many cars as he can, and even fills out the paperwork Boyd usually takes care of.

"Parrish," someone says; deep, slightly husky, slow. Even before he turns around, Adam knows that it's Ronan Lynch; he has the kind of voice you can't forget easily, even if it's been about a week since he's last seen him at Nino's. "I had no idea you work here." 

"Really?" — he claps the Range Rover's hood shut — "Coincidence." Because it's not. Something flashes in Ronan's eyes. Adam wonders if Gansey has always said that, if it had been joke between him and Ronan before it was one between him and Adam.

Ronan steps closer as he lets his gaze dart from car to car, from tire to tire, from wrench to wrench. Adam pretends that he doesn't notice how often Ronan's eyes snag on him while he looks around, before he looks away again to rivet on something else. 

"So. Can I help you?" 

Ronan cocks his head. "I hope so. This is a body shop, isn't it?"

Adam raises his eyebrows but otherwise ignores the arrogance in Ronan's voice. "You wrecked your car?" 

Thanks to Gansey, he knows a lot about Ronan. Nothing too personal, because Gansey isn't the type of guy to give somebody else's secrets up, but he does know that Ronan drives his beloved dead father's BMW. He also knows that he races it, but from what Gansey has told him, Ronan is a good driver. Adam knows, of course, that even good drivers can get into accidents, but still. Something about this feels wrong.

No matter how much Gansey loved Ronan — and still does —, Adam doesn't trust him one bit.

"Some asshole who can't handle losing did," Ronan says with a wave of his hand. "So, can you fix it?" 

"I don't know. Where is it?" 

Ronan steps aside. Behind him, Adam spots the BMW. It's beautiful; sleek, charcoal, fast and low, with bi-xenon headlamps twinkling angrily back at him. The front tires are slightly turned, like the car is waiting for Ronan to get in, like it'd much rather be out painting skid marks onto the asphalt. Adam thinks that if Ronan was a car, this is what he'd look like.  

"Where is the damage?" Adam asks, because there's no indication that this car has ever been in a crash — there's no dent, no scratch, no nothing.

"No idea, that's why I'm here. It just keeps breaking down." 

"It's an M3, right? E36?"  

Ronan's eyes glaze. There's an intensity glistening in them that makes Adam want to look away but also keeps him enchained. It makes his head spin and something hot coil in the pit of his stomach. He's suddenly very aware that he doesn't know what to do with his hands now that he's not working on the Range Rover anymore, so he lifts one up to run it though his slightly sweaty hair. 

Ronan's eyes look brighter than before, and he takes a deep breath.  

"Parrish," he says appreciatively. "I had no idea you were into cars." 

"I'm into a lot of things," Adam replies. A lot of things he can't have.  

One corner of Ronan's pink lips twitches, and he tilts his head to the side, revealing a deep purple bruise on his neck. "Yeah?" 

Adam's heart speeds up; it feels too intimate to stare at some stranger's hickeys, but he can't bring himself to look away, can't stop wondering what else, other than racing, Ronan gets up to with his friends.  

"Yeah," he says, and _god_ , he had not meant for his voice to sound this breathless, this deep. He doesn't even think he's heard himself speak like that before. It's thrilling, though, to find that new part of him, a part that he hasn't known yet, that hasn't been tarnished by his father's insults and blows. 

Adam watches as Ronan's eyes become a little heavy-lidded, lashes fanning out against his prominent cheekbones and casting soft shadows down their edges. Under his black clothes, scowls, cruel eyes and crueler words, Ronan Lynch is very pretty. 

And Adam knows that look Ronan's giving him, knows what it means. It's the sort of look that hasn't been directed at him before — no one, not even Blue, who he'd wished would look at him that way, had — and it makes him feel hot all over, sends his nerve endings tingling and sets his blood on fire. 

He shakes his head, needing to breathe and calm down. This is unfamiliar territory, and Ronan is not the type of person Adam should explore it with.  

"Well," he says, pointing at the car, "pop the hood."

Ronan blinks once, twice, then takes two steps backwards to open the BMW's driver's door and presses some button that allows Adam to open the hood, and— _what the fuck?_ Adam's eyebrows furrow.  

"What happened to your driveshaft?" 

"What do you mean?"  

"It's gone. There is no driveshaft. How'd you get here? Or anywhere at all."

Ronan walks up to Adam, stopping right next to him and then leaning down to take a look at the engine and everything around it. He seems tense; a stark contrast to the air of arrogance he usually oozes. Adam watches Ronan's eyes flicker back and forth almost panicky, taking it all in and biting the inside of his cheek.

"Weird," he says. 

"Impossible," Adam returns. 

Ronan presses his lips together, shrugs. Adam keeps studying him out of the corner of his eye. He remembers Gansey telling him that he's never met anyone as unapologetically honest as Ronan but whatever this moment right here is, it's anything but honest and it just makes Adam more distrustful of him. 

"Maybe it's different for different cars."

Adam shakes his head. "No. It's not." 

And then Ronan scowls at him. There's no real heat behind his glare though. If anything, he looks unsure. "I'm leaving. How much do I owe you?" 

Adam keeps staring at him. "There wasn't anything to repair." 

Ronan shoots him a look, lets his eyes travel down the length of Adam's body, then shrugs and pulls out his wallet to hand Adam a crumpled fifty dollar bill like it's nothing. Adam presses his lips together and Ronan doesn't say anything else before he drives away in a car that shouldn't be able to drive at all. 

Despite being utterly exhausted, Adam has a hard time falling asleep that night. 

 

***

 

Ronan does not go to Latin the next day. 

It's not like skipping is out of character for Ronan, but it's strange that he's not even going to Latin when Latin is the only class he usually does attend to. It's also strange that, at lunch (which Adam spends at his locker to avoid having to snap at Gansey for trying to buy him a sandwich), Joseph Kavinsky suddenly materializes next to him. He's leaning against the locker next to his with one shoulder, and there's a small grin playing at the corners of his mouth and a few scratches on his tan arms. 

"Hello," he greets amiably.

Adam gives him a level look.

"Ouch, Parrish. Could that look get any colder? I'm just trying to have a nice little chat with a pretty little boy."

Adam's look _can_ get colder. He lets it. Kavinsky's eyes light up with delight. 

"What do you want?"

"I've got a joke for you. Wanna hear it?" Before Adam can answer, Kavinsky continues, "What do rednecks call duct tape? Chrome. Ha. Ah, shit, I forgot, you don't have a car. Well, I heard you at least work on them. Anyway, where's Dick Three?" 

Adam clenches his jaw. He feels the same red hot fury as two weeks ago, when Kavinsky insulted him at Nino's. "I don't know where he is. I also don't know what makes you think that he'd want to talk to you."

A laugh splutters out from Kavinsky's lips. "What a mouth on someone who has no car but a moving house. I'm impressed, Parrish." He steps closer, pressing his hand against the cool metal of Adam's locker until it falls shut — Adam just barely manages to get his hand out of the way before it'd have been crushed between the metal and its frame —, the sound getting swallowed by Aglionby's busy hallway. Adam bites his tongue. "See you, Trailer Boy. Remind your dad to pick up his empty beer bottles from the lawn."

Kavinsky is still half-laughing as he walks away, and Adam has to count to ten before he can make his way up the stairs and into his next classroom. 

 

***

 

Unlike Gansey, who always glances at Kavinsky and his gang at least once a day to see if Ronan's there and to make sure that he's alright, Adam has never really cared about them. He stays away and only pays attention to them when they're called on in class (and, surprisingly, they're all smart enough. Kavinsky could probably outdo everyone else at math if he cared enough to focus, Ronan is at least as good at Latin as Adam, Swan is fluent in French, Jiang is basically a walking encyclopedia, Proko always aces his politics exams, and Skov is so good at chemistry that rumors started spreading about him creating his own colorful hair dyes).

Adam would be able to respect them a lot more if they weren't just as lazy and irresponsible as they were smart. If there's one thing Adam hates, it's people who have everything they need to be successful but throw it all away for a bit of fun — especially if it's the kind of fun Kavinsky and his gang are interested in.

And now that they're all sitting in one classroom, Adam next to Gansey and Kavinsky and his friends a few rows in front of them, the difference between them becomes awfully obvious.  

Beside him, Gansey is quiet, his warm hazel eyes set on the blackboard and eyebrows drawn together in concentration as he tries to read the teacher's messy handwriting.  

In front of him, Kavinsky is quietly talking to Proko, his arm resting on his friend's chair's backrest. Swan looks like he's drifting in and out of sleep. Skov is folding pieces of paper into something that's probably supposed to be origami and showing it to Jiang, who looks deeply unimpressed. Ronan is the only one who doesn't do anything stupid; all he does is rest his chin in one of his palms (which scrunches up half of his face and makes his lips look softer and puffier and rosier than usual, and. Well. Shit.) and tap his fingertips against his cheekbone, blue eyes glistening under long lashes as he copies the teacher's notes into his pad. 

"Who are you looking at?" Gansey asks quietly, unmoving, his attention still seemingly on the blackboard. If anyone were to look at him right now, nobody would think he'd be concentrating on anything but Latin. It's another one of his masks. Not that any teacher would scold him for it; every single one of them loves Gansey too much to rebuke him, and besides: Aglionby students' parents pay enough money to allow their kids to do what they want. At least Gansey still _maintains_ the impression that he is, after all, just a picture-book student, respectful, sincere and inquisitive.

"I'm not looking at anyone," Adam says, voice calm despite the fact that his heart has dropped at the speed of light and is now beating somewhere near his feet. He's a good liar, always has been, always had to be. He hasn't quite managed to clip his Henrietta accent though, which makes Gansey tilt his head slightly. 

"I thought we weren't lying to each other," he mumbles. Somehow he makes even an accusation sound polite. But Adam feels bad because he doesn't think Gansey is aware of how much he does actually lie — to him, to himself, to everyone else. 

He feels guilty enough — because Gansey has consciously never done anything to make him feel like he _has_ to lie — that he's actually answering honestly. "Lynch." 

That gets a real reaction from Gansey: he turns his head to give Adam a curious look and raises his eyebrows. "Ronan? Why? Did something happen?"

Adam bites his lip. Yes, something did happen; Ronan drives cars that shouldn't be able to drive, he's run into him more often than ever before, and suddenly Ronan's paying attention to him whereas, just two weeks ago, he'd only ever sneered at Adam or gave him sarcastic winks when passing him in the hallways. 

But Adam remembers the look on Ronan's face when Adam had said _"impossible"_ after finding no driveshaft.  

"No. I just— Look, can we talk about this some other time? I need to pay attention."  

That is partly true. Adam is good enough to not have to pay attention for a few minutes, but because he can only attend Aglionby on a scholarship he doesn't want any teachers to think he takes this for granted. 

And, as expected, Gansey lets it go immediately because he knows how important school is to Adam. 

  

*** 

 

They go to Nino's after school. It was Adam's idea because he has become good at warding off questions and someone's interest in him, and the best way to accomplish that when it's Gansey's interest you have to keep at bay, is Blue.  

"Jane!" Gansey greets as soon as they enter the restaurant. Blue, who is currently setting a pizza down onto a table occupied by four people who Adam knows go to her school, looks up at the sound of his voice, her expression turning slightly pained. It most likely has something to do with the Aglionby sweater he's still wearing. Maybe it's the car keys he's waving at her with. Or maybe it's the boat shoes, which she always tells Adam she'll burn one day when Gansey's asleep. 

"Is this her boyfriend?" one of Blue's schoolmates asks another one. 

"The right one, I think?" another girl says. 'The right one' is Adam, of course. Gansey looks too polished to be in love with anyone whose parents aren't worth millions, which leaves Adam — with his typical Henrietta looks and secondhand school uniform — the only option. Adam's scalp prickles with shame. 

Blue's pained expression turns sour in a heartbeat. There isn't anything she hates more than people speaking ill of her friends and family, and with that statement, the girl had not only insulted Blue (which Adam is sure she wouldn't even care about) but also Adam and Gansey by reducing them both to their money. 

"I'm right here," she hisses, "Why don't you ask me if you're so interested?" 

Blue is by Gansey and Adam's side before the girl can ask, though.  

"Hello," she says to both of them, her tone warmer now. Her eyes dart to Gansey, who is currently lifting a hand to curl a loose strand of her dark hair around his index finger. Blue blushes. "Those _shoes_ , Gansey. I wish I could say you don't even own a boat, but. Of course you do."  

"Of course he does," agrees Adam.  

Gansey makes a face. "I don't own a boat. My father does. Jane, do you have a table for two?"

Blue snorts as she lets her gaze scan the almost empty restaurant pointedly. Adam grins. They both know Gansey only asked because his impeccable manners prompted him to. 

"Free choice. Do you want the usual?" 

"Yes, please," Gansey says, giving her a wide smile, before pushing Adam forward to one of the booths. When they sit down, Gansey folds his hands on top of the table and glances at his vintage wristwatch. "It's so late already. I'm so tired I feel like I could sleep for a week." 

Adam knows that feeling, so he just nods, leans back, and watches as Gansey turns his head to see where Blue is. 

"She's so pretty today, isn't she?" 

It's a little tactless, but it's Gansey, so Adam pushes his anger back down until it's merely part of the ever burning fire of shame and ire in his chest. Sometimes Adam is afraid its flames might waver their way out of his body, so bright he becomes invisible in the daylight. But maybe night is where he belongs. 

"Yeah." 

"What happened with Kavinsky?" Gansey asks. "Rutherford said he saw you two talking. Did that have anything to do with Ronan?"  

Adam stares at Gansey's hands. "No, it just had something to do with Kavinsky being Kavinsky."

"What do you mean?" Adam doesn't miss the protective undercurrent in his voice.

"He's just a prick, Gansey. I don't care about anything he says." 

Gansey shrugs, pressing the pad of his thumb to his bottom lip. "Well, I do." 

"Why?"

"Because he hangs out with Ronan and I'm— I don't know. I don't want Ronan to become one of them, you know? It scares me. I can't lose him." 

"Gansey," Adam starts, hollowing his cheeks and twisting his hands in his lap uneasily, "don't take this the wrong way, but haven't you lost him already?"  

There's a strange combination of hurt and amusement on Gansey's face, and a twinkling in his warm eyes similar to the one Adam gets to see when they're talking about Glendower or magic. When he speaks, he sounds sure of himself in the same way he does when stating facts in class. "No, Adam. I haven't lost him." 

Gansey always believes in the impossible.

  

*** 

 

"You're Adam Parrish." 

Adam looks up from his math homework; his fingers tighten around his pen when he sees it's Blake Skovron standing in front of him, colorful tattoos peeking out from under the sleeves of his Aglionby shirt, his hair dyed a light pastel blue today, holding a textbook (Adam sees symbols he doesn't recognize inked on his fingers and a pink rose on the back of his hand). His eyes — Adam notices he has sectoral heterochromia in the form of a green segment in his left, brown eye — are glistening with mischief.

"So?" 

Skov grins while he moves to the side, letting his hip lean against the edge of the desk Adam is sitting at. Despite the fact that Skov's voice is quiet, he somehow seems too loud for the library. Adam half-expects Mr Ronson, the librarian, to press his small, round body through the bookshelves to hiss at them. 

"K was right, man. You're pretty hostile." 

Adam almost laughs at that. "I'm not hostile. I'm just not interested." 

"Not interested in what exactly?" Skov cocks one of his eyebrows. "Cause I think I heard K say something different." 

"I don't care what Kavinsky told you. Half the stuff that comes out of his mouth is shit anyway."  

Skov's grin turns into a full one thousand watt smile. "Man, you're right. Has to be because of all the shit he puts in it, huh?" 

Adam lets out a deep breath. "Did you actually want anything?"  

"Yeah, of course. Wouldn't waste your precious time for no reason. Tell Gansey to come to K's on Friday." Skov pauses to take Adam in, leaning a little closer, his eyes turning softer, the different hues of brown in them reminding Adam of rings of ancient trees. "He can bring you, too."

"Why doesn't Kavinsky ask him himself? Is he finally getting tired of being turned down?" Adam asks. He hadn't meant for his voice to turn taunting, but it has. 

Skov laughs, just once, a breathy ' _ha!_ '.He looks like he's thoroughly enjoying himself. "Gansey will come this time. Just tell him that K's got a new drug, and that his old friend Lynch isn't all that disgusted with the idea anymore. Hasn't been for a while, actually, but, well, you know. Anyway, I've got soccer practice now. Nice talking to you, Parrish."  

And then Adam watches him leave, watches him smile when he sees Swan waiting for him by the wooden double doors that lead into and out of the library, watches until they're gone. 

Well, fuck. Adam already pictures himself standing in between countless sweaty, wasted people with Gansey, because of Gansey, because he'd do anything for Gansey, because Gansey, for some reason, still believes in his friendship with Ronan fucking Lynch. 

Adam doesn't understand why. Granted, he doesn't know what Ronan was like before his father's murder, but now? He's arrogant, rude, probably not all there (who would be after finding their father's body?), perhaps an addict, and ... there's something off about him, too. 

Adam's mind wheels back to the day he saw Ronan's car; he's hiding something, and Adam wonders if Gansey knows what it is.

 

*** 

 

Gansey is absolutely livid. He's been pacing through Monmouth's living room for the past twenty minutes, his teeth clenched, thumb pressing against his bottom lip, chest heaving with deep breaths. He even kicked his mini Henrietta's post office, sending it flying under one of the couches — the one Blue is sitting on with her arms and legs crossed. 

"Gansey," Adam starts. "He's old enough. He can handle himself." 

"No offense, Adam, but you don't know Ronan." 

Adam puffs. "No offense, but do you?" 

"You're being an asshole," Gansey says at the same time as Blue says, "Nice, Adam." 

Adam leans forward, his lower arms supported on his knees. "Am I wrong, though? Do you really want to go to Joseph Kavinsky's just to see Lynch passed out on some vodka-soaked couch?" 

If Adam's being honest, finding Ronan Lynch passed out would be one of the better scenarios he can think of. He gets annoyed just thinking about how it'd be to try and get a drunk, possibly high, Ronan to go back to Monmouth with Gansey.

"Yes, if that means I can get him out of there." 

"It's probably the only way you could." 

Blue scrunches up her face; she manages to look both cute and bitter, and for a moment — which Adam will later hate himself for —, Adam feels a jolt of jealousy whizzing through his body. 

"Adam," she chides, "stop." 

"Gansey, look, I'm sorry. Really. But maybe you've got to accept that you've done all you could." 

All of a sudden Gansey stops pacing. He stops and stares out of one of the blind, floor-length windows, shoulders slouched and a hand running through his hair. He looks younger now. Or maybe he just actually looks eighteen for once. Sometimes it's easy to forget that Gansey is just a boy, like Adam. 

"I can't stop, Adam. I love him. He's my brother. Nobody knows me like he does, and vice versa." 

Adam tries very hard to not feel hurt, because of course Gansey loves Ronan, and of course Ronan is closer to him than Adam will ever be. It stings nonetheless. 

Blue reaches out to intertwine her fingers with Gansey's. Not missing a beat, Gansey's hand closes around hers. 

"You're going?" she asks.  

"Yes," Gansey answers, intent, with his eyes fixated on Adam like he's waiting for him to tell him to let it go. 

But Adam doesn't say anything. He doesn't say that Gansey's always on a mission, running a marathon of looking out for his friends, and that in Adam's opinion, Gansey doesn't give himself enough room to breathe, and that he should stop when his lungs start to burn and fill with blood. 

But Gansey never stops running, and Ronan Lynch is a mission Adam knows Gansey won't ever move on from. 

 

***

 

As expected, it's loud. Kavinsky's house seems alive with energy; there's loud music playing, sultry lyrics crashing over Adam likes waves, the deep bass vibrating in his bones. There are people everywhere, some wasted, some overwhelmed. It smells of alcohol and weed, a cocktail that's causing Adam's thoughts to slow down more and more. 

And in the middle of it all, there are Adam and Gansey. They both feel out of place, but Adam is the only one who looks it. Gansey, on the other hand, stands tall, his strong shoulders and handsome face relaxed, as he looks around. 

"Do you see him anywhere?" he shouts into Adam's ear, just shortly before someone bumps into Adam's side and spills half their beer over his shirt. Gansey reaches out to steady Adam. "I don't see anything. My eyes burn. I should've just worn the glasses instead of the contacts."

"No, but I see Jiang." 

Jiang Matsuoka is sitting on one of the couches by the wall, his phone illuminating his high cheekbones, his always slightly upturned lips and his straight eyebrows. With one of his hands, he's typing away on his phone's display while the other one is loosely holding a bottle full of something bright green. 

He looks up when Gansey and Adam approach him, blinking twice before recognition makes his dark cat eyes light up.

"Jiang," Gansey greets, holding out a hand. Jiang smiles easily as he leans forward to shake it. "Where's Ronan?"

"No idea, man. Last time I saw him he was with K, and who knows where they went." Jiang gives a one-shouldered shrug, then his gaze lands on Adam. "Hey, Parrish." 

Adam merely nods. Jiang might seem like the sane one — well, as sane as anyone who hangs out with Kavinsky can be — but Adam doesn't trust him any more than the others. Maybe it's the always present half-smile, maybe it's his deep, unfathomable eyes, but Adam always feels like Jiang acts a part. In public, he's a lot quieter than his friends. But that's exactly it — they're his friends. They're close. They have things in common. Kavinsky doesn't simply befriend people; he picks them out, finds them in a sea of a million others, like a shark smelling a bleeding seal.  

Kavinsky has the talent to figure people out within moments, knows what to say to rope them in and make them become dependent on him. And something about Jiang had made him exciting enough for Kavinsky to seek him out, and, even more importantly, keep him. 

Jiang might _seem_ like the sanest one, but Adam isn't sure if he really is. 

Gansey sighing next to him jolts Adam out of his thoughts. "Were they intoxicated?" 

"K, yes. Lynch, I don't know. Probably." Another shrug. "I'd check out the basement if I were you. They're probably in there." 

"The basement?" 

"Yeah. More private down there," Jiang explains with a wave of his hand, which makes the strange liquid in his bottle slosh against the glass, catching the strobe lights.

Gansey's first response is a scowl. Then, after he's remembered his manners, he nods a thank you and turns around to elbow his way through the crowd, Adam behind him.  

Much to Adam's surprise, something inside Gansey shifts, then; he clenches his jaw as he elbows through the crowd, not bothering to apologize when he's pushed somebody out of the way a little too roughy. He strides past people who shout things like 'Gansey boy!' or 'Gansey! You're here!' at him, doesn't even bother to lift his hand in a quiet greeting or offer a smile. 

Adam doesn't even try to tell him to slow down.  

And then — abruptly — Gansey stops.  

And Adam sees why.  

Ronan is sitting on a brown leather couch, his black T-shirt and ripped jeans wet in seemingly random places, with his legs spread slightly and one of his hands between them, fingers loosely curled around the neck of a beer bottle. His other hand is currently busy cradling Joseph Kavinsky's cheek while they're kissing slowly, Kavinsky pressed up against his side with one arm wrapped tightly around Ronan's neck and a hand on one of Ronan's thighs. Every now and then, Adam sees the wet pink of someone's tongue — slow and deliberate — before his gaze drops to Ronan's sharp jaw to watch it move.  

They look at ease, as if this is something they're used to, something they do often. They kiss with the kind of laziness that comes with knowing somebody, but it's also the kind of laziness that Adam knows could turn into something more, something hot, something fast, pretty quickly. 

It's … well, Adam doesn't know what it is. Hot, in a disturbing, heart-breaking fashion, perhaps? 

He watches as Ronan pulls away until their lips are an inch apart and Ronan's eyes open, the brilliant blue twinkling even now, whenever the strobe lights hit his face just right. Kavinsky's hand slides from his neck to his throat, and Adam sees him press his thumb against Ronan's pulse point — Ronan's reaction is immediate: his eyelids droop, his Adam's apple bobs, and he leans his head back against the backrest, exposing more of his pale skin, a barely-there smile on his kiss-red lips. He mumbles something that starts with his bottom lip between his teeth and ends with his mouth opening softly. 

 _Fuck me_. 

Kavinsky's face lights up and his fingers around Ronan's throat tighten. 

Heat pools in the pit of Adam's stomach and creeps up his back.  

"What the fuck," Gansey murmurs next to him. Not even a second later, he is on his way over to the couch. Reluctantly, Adam follows.  

Kavinsky notices them before Ronan does. He smiles very differently from the way he has smiled at Ronan just a few moments ago. If Adam cared enough, maybe he'd wonder what that means.  

"Dickie! How very pleasant to see you here," Kavinsky exclaims and lets go of Ronan's throat to wrap his arm around his neck again. He doesn't move even a millimeter away from him, though. "Lynch. Hey, Lynch. Look who's here." 

"Right, pleasant. _Ronan_." 

Ronan doesn't look up. Instead, he has his eyes trained on his beer bottle. When he speaks, his voice sounds far away, somehow. "Gansey. Fuck off."  

Kavinsky beams. "He's even brought Parrish. What a nice surprise. Parrish, if you're thirsty, there's really good booze here. And don't be shy — I won't even know what you drank. This is your chance to taste something other than tap water and seven dollar whiskey." 

Adam bites the inside of his cheek.

Gansey straightens. "Very entertaining. Really. Does it ever occur to you, though, that ninety percent of your jokes are basically the same? You might want to work on that. You know what they say: variety is the spice of life."

"Ah, but Dick, as you can see, my life is spicy enough already." To prove his point, Kavinsky gently presses his index finger against the underside of Ronan's chin to tilt his head up, presenting his face to Gansey. 

Ronan's irises are blue. Completely blue. His pupils are the size of pinpricks. His eyes are bloodshot and still heavy-lidded. Adam knows what that means, and so does Gansey, whose entire body stiffens next to Adam.

"We've been busy all week. I'm sure Skov mentioned something about that to you, Parrish? There's something we're both _very_ interested in. Not sure any of you'd understand, though, so I won't bother trying to explain. No offense."

Gansey is falling to his knees in front of Ronan in a split second. "Ronan, come on. We're going home." 

Ronan doesn't answer but, of course, Kavinsky does.

"I'm afraid you're a little late, Gansey. You should've been on his knees in front of him earlier. Would've liked that, wouldn't you, Lynch?" — he affectionately pats Ronan's cheek — "Anyway, if you haven't noticed yet, this is his home. You have no idea who he is anymore. I'm not sure you ever did, to be honest."

"Alright, that's enough," Adam says, stepping forward, right behind Gansey, who is staring at Ronan and taking deep, even breaths. "Don't talk to him like that. Come on, Gansey. Let's go. Let's go."  

Reluctantly, Gansey gets up. And then they do go. And some minutes later, outside of Monmouth, Gansey starts to cry and falls to his knees for the second time that night.


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Chainsaw and Cabeswater.

After Joseph Kavinsky's party, Adam doesn't see Ronan Lynch for over a week. He does, however, see his friends around campus every now and then; Skov by the soccer field with Swan not so secretly smoking weed in the stands, Jiang choosing to spend his lunch hour listening to music in his Supra or pestering Henry Cheng and the rest of the Vancouver crowd with mock-sincere questions about his (in Adam's opinion admittedly idle) protest actions, and Prokopenko and Kavinsky sitting outside on the grass, Proko's fingers running up and down the length of Kavinsky's arm.

Every time Adam sees one of them, he bites the inside of his cheek and looks away. 

Every time Gansey sees one of them, he stops to check if maybe Ronan is somewhere nearby. But he never he is, and Adam is tired of watching Gansey's shoulders slouch in disappointment and concern, or the way his face falls. In such moments Gansey isn't wearing any of his masks, and it pisses Adam off — not because he doesn't understand Gansey's grief, but because Ronan Lynch still, after all this time, wields so much power over Gansey. And Gansey doesn't deserve this. What Gansey deserves are fun evenings with his friends, Blue, Noah, weekend trips to national parks and big cities with his family, all the books in the world, and an endless supply of all the things that make him happy. 

So, no, Ronan Lynch does not deserve Gansey. Maybe Adam doesn't either. 

It's Wednesday evening when they're all sitting in Monmouth, sprawled out on Gansey's mismatched leather couches and stuffing their faces with the pizzas Blue brought after her shift at Nino's. 

Noah (who hasn't touched his pizza of course — Adam isn't sure why Blue had even brought him one) is busy playing Mario Kart against Blue, who somehow manages to play — _and_ win — while sitting upside down with her legs over the backrest and a slice of pizza in one of her tiny hands. 

Gansey is so impressed with her that he looks like he is two seconds shy of fainting. Then again, it's Blue: she could be making him grilled cheese and Gansey would still tell her that it's the best thing he's ever eaten, hearts in his eyes, roses on his cheeks, despite the fact that he'd grown up with personal cooks. 

"Shit, Blue," Noah says a little breathlessly. Gansey nods, agreeing, like Noah has just worded his thoughts. Maybe he has.

"I know," Blue says, a broad grin on her purple lips. Adam doesn't know anyone who can pull off weird lipstick shades quite like her.

"And that was the rainbow road!" 

Blue's grin widens. "I _know_." 

"Christ," says Gansey as Blue's name appears on the high score list, topping it. Right below hers, it says 'Lynch'. "You're better than Ronan." 

"Yeah, so? Why are you saying it like that, like it's a surprise? _God_ , Gansey, I can be better than some asshole at Mario Kart and just because I'm a girl—"

"I know, I know! Christ, Jane, I know. That's really not what I meant," Gansey points out, his hazel eyes alarmed behind his wire-rimmed glasses and his hands held up, fingers spread wide. "I'm sorry. I know." 

Blue's eyebrows shoot up and disappear behind her fringe, but before she can say anything else, Noah has already chosen a different character and started a new round, muttering something about how he hasn't been able to showcase his full potential yet. 

Gansey joins them this time, but Adam sits back and closes his eyes, trying to ignore Cabeswater's call. He's been feeling Cabeswater ever since yesterday morning — it's a throbbing in his head, a pull at his hands and feet. It is as if Cabeswater has taken its roots and planted them in Adam's body, acting and blooming through him, with thorns digging into his insides.

"When are we going to Cabeswater again, Gansey?" Adam asks.

Gansey lets out such a log, relieved sigh that Adam wouldn't be surprised if he deflated like a balloon and whooshed through Monmouth. 

"I was thinking this weekend?" — he looks at all three of them, tilting his head — "Is that all right with you?" 

"Of course," Blue says and blushes a little when Gansey gives her his best one thousand watt smile and reaches out to return one of her hair clips to its original position. Noah claps his hands once. Adam looks away.

  
***

 

When they arrive at Cabeswater on Saturday, something is off. 

It seems to be autumn today; the sun's high up in the cloudy sky, just barely peeping through grey, and engulfing Adam, Gansey and Blue in its strange, almost blinding glare as they breathe in the heavy scent of moss, rain, and fallen leaves. Everywhere around them, there are countless colors — soft ones, like deep shades of orange, brown, red, yellow and green — but somehow, they're too vivid, at odds with the weird slope of the trees that look as if they're tired, drained, slowly but surely slipping from life. They're quiet as well, hardly even moving despite the cool breeze. 

Everything about Cabeswater makes Adam feel uneasy today, and one look at Gansey and Blue, who are walking close to him with their hands dangling between their bodies, fingers intertwined, confirms that they're thinking along similar lines. 

In the twenty minutes they've chopped their way through the undergrowth they've already encountered two deer, one unusually trustful fox, and several birds that Adam is pretty sure have followed them. There is one bird in particular that Adam is sure he's seeing over and over again; a massive raven with eyes that strike him as just a little too alert for it to be normal. 

"Is this raven following us?" Adam asks, brushing strands of his hair out of his eyes.

Gansey tilts his head to look up at the trees before letting go of Blue's hand and lifting one of his own to push his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "Do you think it's dangerous?"

Adam shrugs. Usually, he'd say no, say that if Cabeswater wanted them dead, it could've killed many times before. It is a strange thing, possibly dangerous, possibly deadly, but it feels like it's _theirs_ , in some way. Adam doesn't trust it, not really, but he's pretty sure he can control it to a certain extent, especially ever since that bargain. He knows Cabeswater wants him, knows it keeps asking him to come back, feels it in the almost ever-present pull at his body, like there are parts of Cabeswater snaking around Adam's ankles and wrists and maybe his throat, too, to keep him close, to make sure he'll come back. 

So no, he doesn't trust it, doesn't even particularly _like_ it half of the time, but he doesn't think it's going to kill any of them. 

"Christ," Gansey says as he wraps his arms around himself. "Is it just me or has it gotten colder?"

Adam looks up; the sun is gone. In its stead, there is a huge dark grey cloud, stealing most of the light and replacing it with darkness. It was two in the afternoon when they had parked the Pig at the side of the street but it suddenly looks as though it's in the middle of the night, and Adam's stomach clenches. God, he hopes time doesn't work differently in Cabeswater today. He really shouldn't be home too late; his father's had a beer bottle glued to his lips ever since seven a.m., when he'd woken Adam to tell him to take the bottles with refundable deposit back to the supermarket and come back with new ones. 

"Adam?" Blue asks. "You okay?" 

"What— what's going on?" Gansey asks, his voice uncharacteristically rattled and unexpectedly close; Adam hadn't been aware of moving closer to him and Blue. "Do you hear that?"

Blue's eyes widen and, a second later, Adam feels her tiny fingers wrap around his hand, squeezing. He doesn't think anything of it, though — he knows that if he looked down now, he'd see her holding Gansey's hand as well. 

The entire time the raven is watching them, its head cocked to the side, its beak wide open in a silent screech. 

"Are the trees— are they _talking_?" 

Adam very nearly forgets to breathe when he realizes that Blue's right. The trees _are_ talking. It's quiet, more a whisper than anything else, just the leaves being rustled by the wind, and it's not English — it takes Adam a moment to realize that the language they're speaking is Latin. Both Blue and Gansey look at him. 

"Adam, what are they saying?" 

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, furls his eyebrows. It feels as though he's sleepwalking, and before he knows what he's doing, he's talking, Cabeswater putting words in his mouth. Adam's lips are moving but hardly even registers what he's saying, and his heart is pumping too fast, making him dizzy, and he doesn't know if Cabeswater has ever before made him feel so terrible.

"Greywaren. Bring us the Greywaren."

Behind them, the raven takes off. 

 

***

 

Chainsaw lands on Ronan's window sill at midnight, ruffling her feathers and cawing softly.

"Fuck, Lynch. Your bird—" 

"Chainsaw," Ronan corrects, shoving Kavinsky away from him and pushing himself up on one of his elbows. He's too lazy to really get off the bed, so he stretches until the skin and muscles over his ribs burn and his fingers curl around the handle. Chainsaw hops inside as soon as the window's open wide enough, flapping her wings twice and landing on Kavinsky's upper arm. 

"God," Kavinsky says. "This is disgusting. She just crapped on your floor." 

"Should've crapped on you." 

Kavinsky grins as he shakes his arm, trying and failing to get Chainsaw off of him. "Man. This fucking bird."

Ronan slumps back against the pillows, his arms behind his head and his legs pulled up. Kavinsky's iPod is playing some slow R'n'B song, the singer's voice and computer-generated sounds purring out from his speakers like vapor and mixing with the haze of a recently smoked joint. A dreamed-up purple-blue lava lamp and the pale, silvery moonlight streaming in through the window are the only sources of light in the otherwise dark room.

"You going to school on Monday?" Kavinsky asks, rolling over on his side to look at Ronan and not caring about disturbing Chainsaw in the process, who in return croaks in his ear. Kavinsky doesn't seem to notice though, because he only reaches out to cup Ronan's cheek and run his thumb over his sharp cheekbone. 

Ronan shrugs. 

"Dick keeps looking for you," he adds, voice as sweet as sugar. Ronan knows that means that there will be something crude following, so he clenches his jaw. "You sure you didn't let him fuck you back then?" 

And Ronan really isn't the mood to talk about Richard Gansey. He can feel the blood in his veins turn to ice and the shame burning up his face just thinking about him. 

"Remember when you told me I was tight? Your dick's not that big." 

"Ha, fuck you. I still tell you that, though" — Kavinsky inches closer to press his face into Ronan's neck, and just a second later, Ronan feels his tongue licking from his pulse point up to his jaw and back, making him shiver and his heart beat faster — "but it's still really sweet of you to keep thinking of your first time with me, you fucking sap. Wanna reenact?" 

"Fuck, no. It hurt like hell." 

"Maybe I should ask Proko, then," Kavinsky mumbles against his skin.

Ronan's eyes snap over to Chainsaw, and he watches her tugging at the shoelace of his boot on the floor. 

"Do what you want. I don't give a shit." 

Kavinsky leans to the side to cock one of his eyebrows at Ronan, but there's an expression masking the rest of his face that Ronan doesn't know and doesn't care to decipher. "I thought you didn't lie. But we can just go back to your virgin ways and cuddle, if that's what you want. I might even let you be the little spoon." 

"I'm no fucking spoon at all." 

Kavinsky snorts, and when he speaks his tone is mocking: "Ah, yeah, right. You're a kitchen knife, you big badass." 

"This is the dumbest conversation I've ever had." 

"I don't believe you. No offense, man, but you did hang out with _Dick_   _Gansey_ , didn't you?" Kavinsky's black eyes twinkle when he watches his thumb trace the lines of Ronan's lips. And Ronan, because he's still not in the mood to talk about Gansey, parts them and fixes Kavinsky with his best heavy-lidded gaze as he sucks his thumb into his mouth, curling his tongue around the tip. " _Fuck_ , look at you. I couldn't have dreamed someone better." 

Ronan closes his eyes, hums low in his throat, closes both of his hands around Kavinsky's wrist and lower arm to keep him in place, and this time it's not an act. Kavinsky knows him too well, knows he gets off on praise, and unfortunately also knows why. 

"You're better than them all," Kavinsky whispers, his breath fanning over Ronan's face, smelling of weed and whatever disgustingly sweet soda he had that day, because it's rarely water. Kavinsky might be the only person Ronan knows who is even better at not giving a fuck about themselves than he is. 

"You're bordering on overkill," Ronan says around his thumb. 

Kavinsky huffs out a laugh, husky and breathless. Ronan loves him like this; when finally he's not just talking shit and sputtering rude and usually uncalled-for remarks but saying what's on his mind, too far gone to even think about lying or being manipulative. 

His eyes flutter open again when Kavinsky pulls his hand away to cup his jaw, and — a mere moment later — he's being pressed down into the mattress by Kavinsky's body weight. Kavinsky's pupils are still dilated enough to hide most of the light brown around them, but there's a sliver of it there, as bright and wild as usual, and Ronan's breath hitches. 

The other one of Kavinsky's hands traces the line of Ronan's bicep and travels up, up, up, until his hand is at Ronan's wrist, and Ronan lifts his head so Kavinsky can curl his long, bony fingers around his wrists to keep them there. It makes Kavinsky laugh, just once, and then he's kissing him, hard and desperate, with a bit too much tongue and a bite to his bottom lip. 

He licks the roof of Ronan's mouth and grinds down against his hips. Just like Ronan, Kavinsky is hard already, their cocks rubbing together through the fabrics of their sweatpants; it's simultaneously too much and not enough friction. 

They kiss until they can't anymore, until their kisses are nothing more but open mouths pressed together, breathing hotly and shallowly, and both of them aren't really doing anything other than pressing their hips against each other over and over again. Ronan feels Kavinsky's fingers tighten around his wrists, feels strands of his hair tickling first his forehead and then his jaw when Kavinsky drops his head into the pillow next to him, his lips on Ronan's throat.

"God, _fuck_ ," Ronan groans, tilting his head back. Kavinsky's hand moves down to his stomach, his fingers spreading as if he wants to feel as much of Ronan's skin and abs as possible. Ronan rolls his hips up against Kavinsky's. 

"Goddamn, stay still," Kavinsky hisses. "I can't fucking come in my boxers like some— ah, shit, Lynch— like some fucking fourteen-year-old." The last part of his sentence is only barely articulate as his words get swallowed up in a moan that makes Ronan squinch his eyes shut and press his lips together. 

"Let go of my hands," Ronan mutters a moment later. 

Kavinsky lets out a noise that's something somewhere between a moan and a laugh. "Shit, no. No way. Your hands stay where they are." 

Ronan, knowing that a) he's stronger than Kavinsky and b) Kavinsky won't protest, knees him off of him, shaking his hands once they're free, before he moves to straddle Kavinsky's thighs and leans down to kiss him, slower than before. 

Kavinsky's arms snake around his neck, his blunt nails scraping his scalp, while he tugs at the strings of Kavinsky's sweatpants and then pushes his hand down his boxers and curling his fingers around his dick. It's hard and wet with the pre-cum it's been leaking, and Ronan has to stop kissing Kavinsky. He's staring at his swollen, pink, parted lips instead, watches them form _ooh_ s and _aah_ s, watches them form his name and obscenities. 

Ronan sits up and uses his other hand to free his own cock to jerk himself off as well, the first contact already nearly sending him over the edge. 

"I— fuck, _Ronan_ ," Kavinsky moans, his eyes never looking away from Ronan's hand around Ronan's dick, and then he's coming, hot and sticky, all over Ronan's hand and into his pants, and Ronan follows. 

"Got you first," Ronan pants, lying down next to him again and wiping his hands on his pants. 

"Fucking asshole," Kavinsky says before he covers his face with his hands and laughs into his palms. 

 

***

 

It's one a.m. when Adam is finally on his way home. His breath is too loud as he walks down the sidewalk, his steps too fast, and his feet coming in contact with the pavement where they shouldn’t, making him stumble over and over again. 

There's chaos inside him, even more of it than usual, enough to make him forget to look left and right before crossing the street, but Henrietta is quiet at night and there's nobody out on the streets but him. 

Gansey had offered to drive him home but Adam had only shaken his head and left, needing to be able to breathe, needing to quiet his thoughts. 

Adam feels like throwing up, but he knows his parents will still be awake when he gets home and he doesn't want his father to come to any wrong conclusions. He's too late as it is and Adam's stomach clenches when he thinks about what that means for him. 

 

***

 

Gansey comes into the classroom followed by two members of the rowing team, laughing and shaking hands with them before sitting down next to Adam. He's sun-kissed and there's gold glistening at his temples and disappearing into his hairline, making him look even richer and healthier than he does already. His brilliant smile vanishes the moment he looks at Adam for the first time today, and so does the twinkling in his hazel eyes. 

"Oh, no, Adam. Shit." 

"It's nothing," Adam lies, picking at a loose thread on his Aglionby sweatshirt's sleeve. He doesn't remember the last time he's felt so small next to Gansey, who looks as immaculate and glorious as ever.

"This—," Gansey says and points at the purple bruise spreading over Adam's cheekbone, "—is not nothing. I'm sorry it got so late yesterday."

"It's not your fault, Gansey." 

"No, I should've—"

Adam turns in his chair to narrow his eyes at him and push Gansey's hand back down. His back prickles with shame and, much to his dismay, anger. Adam is endlessly thankful that other than them and Gansey's rowing teammates, there's nobody else in the classroom yet. 

"Fuck, Gansey, it's not your fault. It's not about you, alright? Don't make it your problem."

Gansey's jaw hardens. "Well, too late, Adam. It is my problem already."  

"I'm nobody's fucking problem," Adam hisses, eyes focused on the table in front of him, glaring at the dark wood. His muscles are tense.

"No, that's not what I meant. That's not what I said. You know that," Gansey says, both his voice and his expression softer now. He looks hurt, which only makes Adam's back prickle again. "Why won't you just—"

"Told ya, Dickie: downgrade." 

Out of all the students, of course it had to be Kavinsky coming in at that exact moment. Adam's eyes roll ceiling-ward as he tries to control his fury and stop his blood from swirling beneath his cheeks. 

"Not in the mood, Kavinsky," Gansey says, and he sounds just like the Gansey everyone at Aglionby knows; polite and regal with his deep, pleasant voice, and Adam wants to hit something because he's not able to calm down so easily, because it's yet another thing Gansey has over him. 

Kavinsky slumps down into his chair, resting his feet on the one next to him and lets his black eyes snap from Gansey over to Adam. "Nice shiner you've got there, Parrish. I see daddy's still not impressed with you." 

Adam can think of a couple remarks he could make about Kavinsky's own father, but he doesn't know if what he's heard are just rumors, and also isn't terribly interested in starting a fight either, especially not with Kavinsky. Kavinsky himself he could probably take on, as he's not exactly buff thanks to all the alcohol, cigarettes and drugs he regularly consumes, but Adam wouldn't put it past Kavinsky to send one of his boys after him, and that'd be a different story. Also, he can't afford to get into trouble because unlike everyone else here, he wouldn't be able to buy his way out of it. 

As if on cue, the door opens again and in strides Ronan Lynch. His brilliant blue eyes — only slightly dulled by the indifference he always wears — scan the classroom before they linger on Adam's face for a moment way too long for anybody to miss. Adam scowls back at him.

"Lynch," Kavinsky says, his face alight, his voice a little sweeter. "Come here." 

Ronan sneers at him but he does what he's told, sitting down in the chair next to Kavinsky's with his back turned to everyone else. Kavinsky turns around, too, kicking Ronan's chair in the process, then leans over to whisper something in his ear and grins when it makes Ronan's shoulders tense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i haven't really proofread this because i'm in a hurry but wanted to update, so there might be one or two grammar/spelling mistakes (again, i'm german so i'm not super great at writing a lot in a small amount of time and not making mistakes). so if there are any, please let me know!
> 
> also thank you so much for all the comments, kudos, etc. you've left me for the first chapter. they made me really, really happy!!! i sooo hope that this chapter was good enough for you to still enjoy this fic! :)
> 
> (if you want to come chat, find me on tumblr: n0ahc.tumblr.com)


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter St. Agnes.

"Greywaren. That's what the— um, the _trees_ said, right?" Blue asks from where she sits between the pillows on the couch, cross-legged and both of her tiny hands curled around a mug of steaming hot chocolate with the Ghostbusters logo on it. According to Gansey, that mug had been a present from Ronan to Noah.

Noah's eyes roll to the back of his head but he's smiling broadly, and Adam is pretty sure that this is the creepiest thing he's ever seen. 

"Noah," he says, and immediately Noah's eyes fixate on his, wide and distressed.  

"Sorry!"

"It's alright," Blue soothes and holds out her hand for him to take — Noah doesn't waste a second before clasping his fingers around hers. "So, does anyone know what that means? Greywaren, I mean. I don't think I've ever heard that before."  

Noah presses his lips together but everyone's attention is now on Gansey, who shrugs, a complicated expression on his face. His hazel eyes are bright and clear, twinkling in the soft afternoon sun that's streaming in through the window. He presses the pad of one of his thumbs against his bottom lip before he answers — he looks young; eager and full of expectation, the way he always looks when talking about magic, Cabeswater, something strange that has yet to be explored. 

"No, but I'll call Malory tomorrow. Maybe he has an idea," he says before his face falls. "I think it'd be wise to not go back to Cabeswater before we know what's wrong, though."

"I don't think it'll hurt you," Noah mumbles, his eyes still fixed on Adam, who cocks one of his pale eyebrows in response.

"We don't even know what Cabeswater actually is, Noah."

But Noah merely shakes his head and repeats, "I don't think it'll hurt you."

"How do you know that?" 

"It's just … a feeling I've got." 

Adam bites the inside of his cheek, trying to keep the words he's thinking from tumbling out of his mouth. Because Noah is dead, and — as terrible as Adam feels about just thinking it — he doesn't know how reliable Noah's feelings are. Or ever were, because Adam is pretty sure that Noah should not have trusted his _'feeling'_ when going to Cabeswater with Whelk all those years ago. 

"That wasn't _Cabeswater_ ," Noah hisses, looking hurt and sad, his lips pressed together, and shit, he really shouldn't have read Adam's thoughts right then. Guilt licks at Adam's scalp, making his cheeks flush and stomach clench. "Cabeswater didn't kill me. Barry did. Whelk did." 

"I'm sorry, Noah. I know." 

Noah's expression turns even sadder, and Adam's heart aches. "You can trust me. I know I'm dead, but you can trust me. We're friends, aren't we? I wouldn't want either of you—"

"Noah," Blue chimes in, voice soft and warm. For what feels like the thousandth time, Adam is immensely grateful for her, for what she means to Noah. "We know that, and we trust you. We love you." 

Noah nods, gives her a small smile, and then his light grey eyes are back on Adam, an emotion Adam can't quite make out swimming in them. God, Adam feels awful. He so wishes he could be more heart and less attack. 

When Noah speaks again, it's with a voice a bit too quiet, a bit too strident. "Cabeswater may be a little chaotic at the moment but it's not dangerous. It's _not_ bad." 

At that, Gansey looks up. "What about that raven, Adam?" 

Noah stares at Blue's Ghostbusters mug while Adam and Blue both look at Gansey in confusion. 

"You did say you felt like it was following us. Have you seen it since?" 

"No."

Again, Gansey presses the pad of his thumb against his bottom lip, immersed in his thoughts once more. 

Adam sometimes wonders if Gansey ever really thinks about anything else but Cabeswater, his friends, and Glendower. If he ever lies awake at night and contemplates his life after Henrietta, after his hunt for dead Welsh kings and after Blue. Because Gansey will, without a doubt, leave Henrietta one day, to go to college, to go make new friends, to go find a new girlfriend, to go write his own story instead of studying and following those of others. Because Gansey doesn't live his life, not really. Instead, he spends his days worrying about a lost brother, discovering more magic, and being in love with Blue. 

And as a sideline, he aces most of his classes without having to study too much because the _A_ s come naturally to him. Because he's Richard Campbell Gansey III, and the only thing he'll have to worry about after graduation is whether it'll be Yale, Harvard or any other Ivy League college for him.

Adam, on the other hand, doesn't even know if he'll make it to college. Yes, his grades are impeccable and he's smart, but he doesn't have the money and he doesn't have the name. He has nothing. Gansey's on the move, on to bigger and better things — things he can afford, things he deserves. Adam, however, is stuck, trapped in the sticky cobweb that is not only Henrietta but also his own body and mind. And god, he feels so alone.

"Adam?" Blue asks, her voice forceful and laced with concern, and that's how Adam knows he's been zoning out. He blinks at her.  

"What?" 

"I asked you how you were doing. After, you know, our last trip to Cabeswater." 

Blue hasn't seen him with his bruises and they're mostly gone now, their yellow barely discernible against his tanned skin and his freckles, which means that Gansey must've mentioned something about it to her. Adam really can't help the glare that he's fixing Gansey with as soon as the words are out of Blue's mouth. At least Gansey has the decency to lower his head. 

"I'm good," he says through clenched teeth, trying to swallow his anger back down, to suffocate it before it becomes hard to.

Blue opens her mouth to say something else but it's then that she's suddenly interrupted by Gansey's phone vibrating on the coffee table. 

Gansey leans forward to see who the text is from, furrowing his brow. His shoulders tense when he sees whose number it is, but he swipes his thumb across the screen nonetheless — and presses the lock button a second later, his eyes stormy, solicitude etched onto his face, teeth digging into his bottom lip.  

Adam knows what that means: Lynch. Or probably Kavinsky as — for all Adam knows — Lynch doesn't ever use his phone to get in touch with Gansey, but whatever it is Gansey's looking at, it is Lynch-related, and so it is worrying Gansey, and so it is pissing Adam off. 

And just like that Adam's anger is back, save that this time he doesn't bother trying to ease it. 

"What is it?" Blue asks tentatively. 

Adam looks down at his old phone as if he's only gotten a text message himself, but the phone's screen is black, his battery long dead. "I've gotta go," Adam says with a calmness that surprises even himself. Noah tilts his head to stare at him. 

Gansey looks confused. "You've got to work today? I thought—"

"Marcus called in sick. I have to fill in for him. See ya tomorrow."  

"Hey, Adam, wait!" Gansey stands up, too. Blue's eyes flicker between him and Adam, but Noah hasn't stopped staring at Adam with one of his eyebrows raised. "Want me to drive you?" 

Adam waves a hand. "Nah, I have my bike. Thanks, though. Bye." 

 

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, when his legs and lungs are already burning from pedaling, Adam remembers that he doesn't really know where Ronan Lynch lives and if he's actually cycling in the right direction. 

He knows where Kavinsky lives, of course, as everyone does thanks to his parties and reputation, and he also knows that his friends hang out at his mansion more often than not, but he's pretty sure he's seen Skov, Swan, Jiang and Proko carrying Aglionby dorm keys with them. 

If Lynch lived on campus, Adam is positive that the dorm staff would most likely make an effort that he doesn't skip classes as often as he does. He's also positive that there would be more reports on vandalized rooms and rubber burns on the school's asphalted parking lot. 

Gansey has told Adam about Ronan's family's property in Springer's Falls that he hasn't had access to since his father's death, so Adam doubts he's there. Besides, Springer's Falls is a few too many miles away to reach by bike.  

So Adam stops. 

He plants his feet back on the ground, feeling the gravel under his worn down shoes, and rests his lower arms on the bike's handlebar as he takes a couple deep breaths and waits until his heart stops hammering rapidly inside his chest.  

And that's when he sees a sleek grey BMW parked in front of a church.  

Coincidence.

Adam clenches his teeth as he wheels his bike over to the parking lot and leans it against a sign right next to the heavy wooden doors that lead into the church. He's not a religious person — and he honestly hadn't pegged Ronan Lynch as one — so he doesn't particularly feel bad about going inside with the intention to give it to him straight, but he still hopes that there's no one else in there but Ronan. 

He is lucky; Ronan sits on the bench in the front row, his head bent and shoulders relaxed. He's wearing a black T-shirt and Adam can see a bit of his tattoo where it's peeking out from under the collar, harsh lines against pale skin. He looks strangely out of place, and then not at all. 

"Lynch," Adam says as he comes closer. 

Ronan doesn't move. At all.

Adam knits his eyebrows before, suddenly, Gansey's voice starts flooding his brain, quiet and careful, like the words he's saying are causing him physical pain — "He said he wouldn't try it again. He promised he wouldn't." — and fuck. 

 _Fuck_. 

Adam hurries up the aisle, but his legs feel heavier than usual and his heart has started hammering again, alive with adrenaline and fear. He slows down before he's at Ronan's side, hopes to God that he won't be coming face to face with a corpse, and then looks down at his face. 

His first thought is _'shit_ , _'_ because Ronan's eyes are closed, his long lashes casting soft shadows down his sharp cheekbones in the church's dim candle light, and his lips are slightly parted. 

Thankfully though, a moment later, Adam notices that neither the muscles in his face nor his arms are relaxed — he can see the blue veins somewhat raised under his pale skin, from his biceps all the way down to his wrists and his hands, which are resting on his lap with his palms upturned and his fingers twitching. 

There is something incredibly eerie about the way his eyes flicker restlessly behind closed lids and the way his chest rises and falls with each shallow breath, and Adam all of a sudden has the urge to shake Ronan awake.  

So he does.  

He leans closer, curling his fingers around Ronan's wrists, not because he knows what they're capable of but because of what he sees there — scars, many of them, faded but still clearly visible, long and glistening — and squeezes, feeling warm leather bands and soft skin.

"Lynch. Wake up." 

Immediately, he's staring into wide, strikingly blue eyes and listening to a sharp inhale. 

 _Oh_. 

Maybe he's a bit too close. 

"What the fuck?" Ronan snarls, but still doesn't move an inch, despite the fact that everything about him suggests that he wants to. A muscle in his neck twitches, but that's it. 

"Are you alright? Can you move?" Adam asks. 

Ronan's expression darkens. "Maybe if you let go of my hands." 

Adam does. He takes a step back and watches as Ronan looks away from him, clenches his jaw and flares his nostrils. It takes a while until he actually moves, though, and Adam looks on in bewilderment when Ronan tilts his head, cracks his neck, and lifts one of his hands to run it over his shaved hair. The other one stays closed. 

"Are you alright?" Adam repeats. God, this really isn't how he'd imagined this conversation to go. 

"Yes, Parrish, just peachy," he hisses. "Is there any reason you're here?"  

Adam crosses his arms. He knows his Henrietta drawl is going to come through, but this is only Lynch, and he doesn't care enough about him or what he might think of Adam to clip it. "This is a church, isn't it? If I'm not mistaken, it's a public place." 

"Yeah? What do you have to pray for? Food stamps for better restaurants? Someone to finally grow out of their clothes and take them to the clothing drive so you won't have to run around in the same holey shirts all the time?"  

Adam's neck prickles. "Fuck you." Then he sees something. "There are holes in your sleeves, too. Right here." This is where he shoves Ronan's shoulder, where the tiny holes are, which causes Ronan to stand up and get in his face, a quirk to one corner of his pretty lips. Adam wills himself to stay where he is and ignore the panic and anger clawing at his insides. This is the second time he really wants to punch Ronan Lynch. 

"The difference, though, is that I'd be able to afford intact clothing." 

"If you're so rich, I'd suggest you go buy yourself and your friends new phones so that neither of you have Gansey's number anymore."

Much to Adam's surprise, it's Ronan who takes a step back, stiffly and quickly and wide-eyed, as if he'd been struck. 

"What?"  

"You're pissing him off with whatever crap you keep sending him."

"I'm not sending him anything."  

 _That's also a problem_ , Adam wants to say, even if he wishes that it wasn't true. What he says instead is, "You're not that stupid. Control your pal Kavinsky." 

"Kavinsky does whatever the fuck he wants to do. I'm not his fucking minder."  

"Then become his 'fucking minder.'" Adam clenches and unclenches his hands, trying to ease the urge to punch Ronan. He's not his father. He's not. But one of Ronan's hands is also still curled into a fist and while it is kind of weird that it's only the one, Adam doesn't trust him enough to let go of all his defenses and relax too much.

Ronan arches an eyebrow, his eyes hard, the blue ice cold. "Did Gansey send you here?" 

Adam snorts. "Do you really think he'd ever do that?"  

A few seconds pass in silence before Ronan ducks his head and gives a one-shouldered shrug. Adam stares at him, takes him in, discovers once again that Ronan Lynch is really fucking pretty, especially now that he's looking back at him with his cheeks flushing rosy. Adam also notices that his fist has never really been an actual fist; his fingers are curled too loosely and his thumb is between his fingers and his palm, which would have resulted in Ronan breaking it if he had planned to punch Adam, and that's a mistake Adam is pretty sure Ronan is too adept to make. 

And once again, Adam can't shake the feeling that something about Ronan doesn't quite add up. 

"I'll tell him to stop bothering Gansey," Ronan says, before he bites the inside of his cheek and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "How is he?" 

Adam blinks. That was unexpected; the question as well as the sheepish way Ronan had asked it. 

"Uh. He's … fine."

"What about that girl?" 

Adam's eyebrows raise. "Girl?" 

"Yeah, the— the tiny one. With the weird fucking clothes."  

"Blue. She's fine, too?" he says, confusion making his answer sound like a question.

Ronan rolls his eyes. "I don't don't give a fuck about how she's feeling. I want to know if she's good to him." 

"Yeah, she is. Look, if you want to know all these things so bad, just go talk to him. He's not going to bite your head off. He doesn't care if you've been a dick to him, even though, in my opinion, he should." 

Ronan looks conflicted now. He stares at a marble statue of some angel holding a golden harp, then shakes his head. "Whatever. I gotta go." 

"Ah, so the car's still driving then?" Adam asks. He doesn't know why he does; maybe it's because he wants to antagonize Ronan even more, because his fucking car shouldn't be _able_ to drive. He still doesn't get how it's possible that it does. Or maybe it's because he doesn't want him to leave yet. 

"Smoothly."  

"Interesting."  

Ronan glares at him. "Is there any point to this conversation?"  

"You mean other than you using it to find out how Gansey's doing because you're too much of a coward to ask him yourself?" 

Adam watches as Ronan's jaw works as he leans back against the edge of the old, wooden bench, one of his hands still a loose fist. Ronan fixes him with a level look, but there's fire behind his eyes. 

"What's in your hand?" 

Ronan looks back calmly. "What?"  

"Your hand. You're holding something. What is it?"  

"I don't see how that's any of your business, Parrish. I'm off." He's already turning around while he speaks, pushing both of his hands deep in his black jeans' pockets. Adam watches him go, looks at the way his T-shirt clings to his shoulders, its obviously expensive fabric falling down the line of his back delicately but catching on the muscles as they ripple slightly with every move they make. The way his jeans hang off his narrow hips, tight around his slim legs.  

 _God_.  

Adam's only jolted out of his train of thoughts when, suddenly, he hears an all too familiar caw, loud and echoing in the high-ceilinged church, before he spots a raven flying right above him, large wings spread and beak open, before it lands on Ronan Lynch's shoulder, beating its wings once and then settling down like this is where it belongs. 

Adam stays rooted to the spot, even until after the church door has clicked shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i'm sorry this chapter isn't that long as i'm in a bit of a hurry, but the next one's already nearly finished and longer and will feature more interactions (also with the dream pack lol).
> 
> hopefully there aren't any major grammar/spelling mistakes (since i'm from germany and still learning english) but if there are, please let me know!
> 
> i hope you enjoyed reading this chapter and thank you so much if u decide to let me know what you thought about it :)
> 
> (also thanks for all the comments + kudos so far! i'm so glad for every single one!)


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kavinsky.

****“K,” Ronan says, voice husky with fatigue, skin warm from spending the night in Kavinsky’s bed. His pale skin contrasts with the dark gray sheets he's tangled in, his cheeks and lips a cool shade of pink.

Kavinsky thinks, as he's looking at Ronan’s reflection in the mirror he's standing in front of, that he's really very pretty. Way too pretty, in fact, considering how he makes every endeavor — harden his voice, shave his head, spit his words — to be the cold, frightening boy he wants people to see. He’ll always be a privileged rich boy, though. 

“What?” Kavinsky asks and averts his eyes from Ronan half-naked in his bed. Instead, he turns his attention back to the mirror, his brown eyes staring back at him with more hostility than they ever direct at anyone else. He's clenching his jaw, watching the muscles move as he does, and flexes his hand to keep from smashing the mirror in. He looks just like his fucking father. 

With a shaking hand he touches the reflective surface, traces the outlines of his face. He's fine-boned like his mother — a thin nose, prettily shaped lips, a nice jawline. It's his father’s eyes that he's got, though, clever and alert, and the ever-present curve to his mouth, like he's constantly wearing a smug grin if he isn't busy scowling at someone. He doesn't blame anyone who tries to punch it off. 

He hears the rustling of sheets behind him, and a moment later Ronan is standing next to him, his brilliant blue eyes trained on Kavinsky’s hand on the mirror, his boxers low on his narrow hips. In the golden sunlight — what is it? 5 am, maybe? — Ronan’s abs contract and relax with every breath he takes, and Kavinsky finds it hard to look away. 

He does look away though, when Ronan’s hand is suddenly in front of his face, a pair of white sunglasses dangling from his fingers. Kavinsky takes it and puts it on. When he looks in the mirror again, all he sees is himself. 

It pisses him off how well Ronan knows him, because sometimes he feels like he doesn't know Ronan at all.

Ronan shifts next to him, and for a moment Kavinsky thinks he's going to touch him, wrap an arm around him and squeeze his shoulder, or perhaps just touch his wrist like he did an hour earlier, searching for a heartbeat while moving against him, but Ronan doesn't and Kavinsky wants to punch him for not doing it or maybe himself for wanting it. 

“Is it guilt?” Ronan asks. 

Kavinsky points at Ronan’s hair. “Is it fear?” 

Ronan scowls at him, his eyes turning cold. It's a stark contrast to the way he'd looked earlier this night; heavy-lidded and soft-eyed, lips parted and mouth sweet. 

“What the fuck do I have to be scared of?” 

“You sound like me, Lynch. Know what they say about couples adopting each other’s—“

Ronan says what Kavinsky knew he'd say, but it still makes his heart clench. “We’re not a couple.” 

“You still come here to let me fuck you, so.” 

“I could stop.” 

Kavinsky looks at him. “I'd still have Proko.” He doesn't know why he says it, because a challenge is something Ronan will never turn down, but he's in a shit mood, and it's too fucking early to argue. If Ronan takes the bait, he'll be out of here in a second, leaving behind the echo of a colorful string of curse words and the memory of an icy glare. 

Ronan doesn't rise to the bait, though. All he does is roll his eyes and walk back towards the bed before dropping back down onto the mattress. Fucking arrogant for someone so full of self-hatred, is what he is. 

“It's not just a rumor, is it?” 

Kavinsky can't look away from Ronan. “He would've killed my mother.” 

“You're killing your mother right now.” 

“I’m not giving her fucking meth.” 

“You don't know how dangerous your dream shit is,” Ronan remarks, slumping back onto the pillows. Kavinsky watches the rise and fall of his chest. 

“It won't kill her. I’m helping her — it's better this way. She's not all there, man. You know that.” 

“Yeah? Have you asked her if it’s ‘better this way’ for her, too? You’re keeping her away when you could have a mo—“

Kavinsky rolls his eyes. “Ah, cool, man. I had no idea you were pursuing a career in psychology.” 

“Fuck you,” Ronan says, but his voice is light, like there's a laugh laced through his words, as he’s staring up at the ceiling and folding his arms behind his head. Kavinsky isn't fooled though; it's not that easy to make Ronan Lynch laugh, so he knows that if he had heard correctly, it’d have most likely been one of Ronan’s bitter laughs — the kind of laugh he directs at Headmaster Child when he's being scolded for the number of lessons missed or at Gansey when he fixes him with that reproving look he honestly doesn't have the right to give Ronan anymore.

Like Ronan, Kavinsky doesn't usually say sorry. He knows when he's gone too far though, knows that family is a sore spot for Ronan, knows that unlike him, Ronan has always had a good relationship with his parents. Kavinsky doesn't know what that's like, or what it means, really, because it's always been him, alone, with no tailwind. Instead it feels like he's always walked in a storm, dodging debris and holding on to everything solid he found — Proko, Swan, Skov, Jiang, and Ronan. 

And because Kavinsky doesn't say sorry, he does what works best for him and Ronan. He walks over to him still lying on the bed, climbs over him and leans down. 

Ronan’s looking up at him, his biceps twitching like he wants to touch Kavinsky but refrains from doing so. He’s tilting his head back though, exposing his sharp jawline and the expanse of his pale throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing. 

Kavinsky’s mouth waters — he loves Ronan like this; pliant, beautiful, for once not putting up a fight. Sometimes he wonders if Ronan, like Proko, is one of his dream things. But then Ronan pulls his lips back in a snarl or makes Kavinsky work for it, and that's how he knows that he's different. That's why he's so good. He's real and he's dealing with the same shit Kavinsky does, and it makes him feel less alone and more understood. He'd never tell Ronan, but it's nice that he’s here. 

“K?” Ronan asks, voice barely more than a whisper. Kavinsky watches his long eyelashes flutter when Ronan blinks at him, the blue of his eyes startlingly intense as it always is from up close. 

Kavinsky leans closer, lets the tip of his nose brush against Ronan’s prominent cheekbone, ignores the pull at his heart and the flush to his cheeks that tells him he's being too strange, too unlike himself. 

It's too late to stop though, because Ronan is already inhaling sharply.

“What,” — Ronan’s hands come up to his ribs, his blunt nails digging into the skin there — “are you doing?” 

“Nothing, princess,” Kavinsky mumbles, lips pressed to Ronan’s throat, feeling his rapid heartbeat vibrating against them. Because this is getting a bit too weird, he opens his mouth and then bites down, hard, making Ronan squirm underneath him. 

“Fuck,” Ronan groans, “You asshole.” 

Kavinsky licks the now red spot on Ronan’s throat as he curls his fingers around his neck and presses his hips down into his to keep him close. When Ronan parts his legs to make room for him to settle between them, Kavinsky can feel that he is half hard already, and his vision whites out for a second. 

“Wait, wait,” Ronan says, and Kavinsky very nearly growls at him. 

“What?” 

“Stop texting Gansey.”

Kavinsky sits up but stays between Ronan’s legs, his hands on Ronan’s thighs. “What the fuck, Lynch? You're thinking of Dick now?” 

Ronan just rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. Alright. Fine with me. Can we—” He waves a hand between them, then jerks his hips against Ronan’s, breathing out through his mouth when their cocks brush. Ronan’s cheeks are flushed and his breathing is a bit heavier as well, but his face stays stern. “I really wanna get off now.” 

“I mean it, K.” 

“I said yes,” Kavinsky says. “Why though?” 

“Because it's pissing Gansey off.” 

“That's kinda the point, sweetheart.” 

Ronan clenches his jaw. “Just … don't.” 

"Did you talk to Dickie?" 

Ronan shakes his head, his expression unreadable but his flush has become slightly rosier. He shifts on the mattress, legs tightening around Kavinsky's hips, which is something Kavinsky would have a lot more fancy for if he didn't know the reason for Ronan's behavior. 

"It was trailer trash," Kavinsky infers, running a hand through his hair before leaning back down to be closer to Ronan, who considers him with narrowed eyes. Kavinsky licks his lips, then tilts his head and kisses Ronan, once, twice, no tongue, no pressure. It's the kind of kiss that makes his insides melt, the kind of kiss he'd never tell any of his friends about. It's the way Proko likes to be kissed when they're high and warm and sleepy, soft like the moans it draws from Proko's mouth. 

But Ronan pushes him away.

"What's up with you today?"

Shit. So he _has_ noticed. 

Kavinsky lets his mouth stretch into a lazy sneer and flashes his eyes at Ronan. "Still wanna come?"

"Are you going to stop?" 

"Sending Dick dicks? Yeah, sure, whatever." 

"Did you send him yours?" 

Kavinsky laughs. "I sent him yours. Showed him what he's missing out on. Maybe he'll show Parrish and then _he_ 'll let you have a go." 

Ronan snorts, but it sounds unconvincing. Kavinsky doesn't know if he should jeer at him or punch him for it. Perhaps he should jeer at himself, considering how his stomach drops pathetically at the blatant lie in Ronan's words. "What the fuck do I want with Parrish?"

"I've been in your head, man. I know you. There's no need to lie to me." 

"I don't lie." 

"Yeah? I've seen the way you look at him, man. It's fucking pathetic. Adam Parrish, what the fuck."

Ronan scowls at him. "I said I don't—"

But because Kavinsky doesn't want to keep talking about Adam fucking Parrish, he takes Ronan's head in his hands and kisses him again, hard and messy, too much tongue and too many feelings. Ronan's moan vibrates against his lips for the rest of the day. 

 

* * * *

 

It's in the middle of the night when Ronan wakes up, sweat-soaked and breathless. 

Chainsaw is perched on the windowsill, ruffling her feathers and cawing at him with her beak wide open. Ronan stares at her as he tries to get oxygen into his lungs, but every time he breathes, it feels as if his windpipe constricts more and more. He's never had an anvil dropped on him before, but he's pretty sure that this is what it'd feel like. 

"Lynch, fucking hell!" Skov hisses, his voice strangely close. Ronan averts his eyes from Chainsaw and looks up only to find Skov leaning over him, his hands on his shoulders and light brown eyes wide with panic. Ronan tries to say something but he can't even open his mouth to speak. In fact, he can't seem to make any part of his body move. The words feel stuck on the top of his tongue, held back by the tension in Ronan's body. "K, what the fuck did you do?" 

"Fuck you, I didn't do anything. He just— stopped breathing!" 

"Did he dream?" Swan asks calmly. Out of the corner of his eye, Ronan sees him sitting on the edge of the bed with a pack of roasted Cashew nuts in his lap, busying himself with cracking them open and tossing them into his mouth. 

There's a pause before Kavinsky says, "No idea, man. We fucked and then I fell asleep." 

Ronan doesn't know either. The last thing he remembers is listening to Kavinsky's quiet snoring and the wind whispering outside. 

Suddenly there's the palm of a hand on his forehead, warm and soft. When Ronan looks up, his eyes lock with Proko’s light mint green ones. Proko doesn't say anything, just looks back at Ronan with a tiny, soothing smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Sometimes Ronan wonders if he remembers the day Kavinsky killed him, or the day he was brought back to life; the same but different, himself but not really. 

"Skov, calm down." That's Jiang, and Ronan has no clue where he is until he sees the bright display of Proko's iPhone and Jiang's slightly pixelated face. Wherever he is, the signal's poor. 

"He doesn't fucking move!" 

"His eyes do, so he's not dead," Swan quips before dropping one of the nuts and muttering a barely audible "fuck" because of that. He doesn't make a move to pick it up, though. 

Jiang rolls his eyes. "Did he pop anything?" 

"Nah, I didn't have anything left. I was gonna dream something up tonight," Kavinsky says as he sits down on the mattress next to Ronan, his hip brushing Ronan's upper arm. Proko's standing on Skov's other side, digging his teeth into his bottom lip and fiddling with the hem of his pale blue T-shirt with his free hand. "I don't— I mean, maybe he was in my dream with me, I don't remember. All I do remember is a storm and huge fucking fire and me slowly walking towards it."

"So, kind of like poking a hornets' nest with your dick," Swan notes around a mouth full of nuts. Kavinsky is looking at him like there's a joke he wants to make.

Ronan watches as Skov bumps his fist against Swan's shoulder before suddenly Kavinsky is right above him, his hands around Ronan's throat. His eyes are still more brown than black and despite the red rimming them, he looks so much younger than he usually does, and somehow it's enough to make the tightness in Ronan's chest disappear. 

With a gasp of breath, he sits up, almost headbutting Kavinsky in the process if he hadn't managed to lean away just in time. It's then that he notices he's in nothing but his boxers, and there's a bit of sweat pooling in the dips above his collarbones. 

"Fuck, Lynch. What was _that_?" Skov asks. 

Swan cocks his head. "You all right, man?" 

"I'm fine," Ronan says.

"Don't look too fine to me," Proko gives back while letting his gaze travel from Ronan's face down to his still slightly shaking legs. 

"No, I'm— I'm fine. That was Cabeswater." 

Kavinsky groans. "Your fucking forest?" 

Skov lets the tips of his fingers run over Ronan's head, making Ronan look up at him. Today, his hair is a soft lilac, his undercut his natural brown. They're all good-looking boys but out of all of them, Ronan thinks Skov might be the most beautiful. 

"Do you wanna go check it out?" 

 

* * * *

 

"Have you seen Ronan today?" Gansey asks as he sits down next to Adam, dropping his chemistry book onto the desk in front of him. Adam, because he hasn't heard Gansey approach, gives a start. 

"What? Oh, no, I haven't." 

"Weird. His car's in the parking lot and" — Gansey glances at Skov, who is busy sending text messages with a small smile on his face, an empty chair to his left — "Blake Skovron is here." 

“He's probably in Child’s office getting scolded or something," Adam says before he leans closer and adds, in a lower voice, "Look, Gansey, there's something I need to tell y—” 

"Nightwing," Kavinsky says, tapping the edge of Gansey and Adam's desk. As usual, there's the hint of a smile on his lips but there's something off about him; Adam can't quite pinpoint what it is exactly, though. "We need to talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helloooo. thanks for reading and i hope you liked this chapter! i feel like this fic is going kinda slow so i'm planning to make it a bit more exciting in the following chapters. introductions are always a little hard for me so i hope you're still into this fic and willing to read more. 
> 
> it'd mean a lot to me if you could spend 10 seconds to tell me what you thought about it? and thanks to everyone who has left kudos and comments so far!!! you're all making me really happy :) 
> 
> (+ there is going to be more of adam and ronan in the next chapter!)


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kavinsky knows.

"Okay, we're alone," Gansey says, his forearms on the table's cool surface, the right side of his face illuminated by the yellow streetlights in the parking lot outside. To everyone else, Gansey might look relaxed, but from where Adam is sitting next to him, he can see the tense line of his shoulders and the strained muscles underneath the soft, golden skin of his arms. 

Gansey's slightly narrowed eyes are fixed on Kavinsky, who sits across from them with one of his shoulders leaned against the window next to their booth and a sly grin on his face. He'd be good-looking, Adam muses, if he didn't look like such a smug asshole all the time. And, of course, if he remembered to eat and drink something other than junk food and sodas in between his jags.

Kavinsky props his mirrored sunglasses up on his head, the white plastic partially disappearing behind thick strands of black hair. His pupils are blown, but there's a thin ring of brown around them, twinkling in the bright artificial light that's flooding Nino's and causing his cheeks to look even more hollow. One of his hands is curled around a glass of ice-cooled coke, tiny drops of water running down the glass, the back of his hand and then dripping onto the table. As usual, the skin covering his knuckles is split open and angry red and there are purple bags under his eyes, barely visible due to his tan skin but for someone like Adam, who is way too familiar with the signs of exhaustion on his own face, it's easy to perceive. 

Every now and then, Adam can feel Blue taking peeps at them but whenever he looks her way, she's busy cleaning the counter or talking to one of the other waitresses. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he sees her looking over at them with her lips pressed together and her arms folded. Her dark hair is tied up in a tiny ponytail, colorful clips holding most of the too-short strands back, but there is one which keeps falling into her face, and Blue — somehow managing to look both cute and underwhelmed at the same time — purses her lips to blow it away. 

Adam tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach and calls his attention back to Kavinsky who, apparently having noticed Adam's eyes on him, lets his gaze meet his and winks. Adam just blinks at him, not in the mood for any of his games but unable to stop his hair from standing on end.

Gansey sighs. "Kavinsky." 

"God, Dick," he groans. "Learn to share. You didn't grow up as an only child, did you? I'm pretty sure I have a yearbook with a picture of your sister in it somewhere back at my place. Pretty girl. Classic beauty. Under my bed, maybe? I don't really remember. I mean, the page is probably quite sticky by now anyway, but—" 

"Let's go," Adam says to Gansey — whose jaw has tightened even more — and nods towards the entrance door. "He's just wasting our time." 

"Do what you have to do," Kavinsky replies, still grinning at the two of them and cocking one of his eyebrows when Gansey turns his head to eye him warily. He looks like he is enjoying this situation way too much.

"Where's Ronan?" 

"Aw. Do you miss him?"

Gansey's frown deepens. "I saw his car in the parking lot but he wasn't in class." 

"What?" Kavinsky widens his eyes, which are now twinkling with amusement, and lifts a hand to put it on his chest. "Really? Ronan Lynch missing class? Shit, that's strange. I hope he's okay." 

Anger flits over Gansey's face, raw and quick as lightning, but it stays, like a too-close thunderstorm you wish would drift by but won't. Adam knows it's not because of Kavinsky's words but because of the memory they carry with them; Ronan Lynch on the ground, eyes unfocused and half-closed, thick, red blood pouring out of his slit wrists.

Fury crashes over him, hot and uncomfortable and familiar, making Adam lean forward, his forearms on the table's cool surface. He lets his voice go cold. "This is all real fun, but we came here under the impression that you had something important to talk about."

Kavinsky's eyes flicker over Adam's face, as if he's searching for something but neither his grin nor his attitude falters. "You look tired, Parrish. Didn't get a lot of shuteye over the last while? Did— oh, did Dick keep you busy?" When Adam doesn't answer and merely glares back at him, Kavinsky rolls his eyes before he looks at Gansey. "Lynch is sick. I took his car 'cause Proko crashed mine. Drove it down a ditch, made it go up in flames. You should've seen it, man. It was fucking beautiful." 

"Sick how?" 

"Throwing-up-all-fucking-night-long sick. Paler-than-usual sick. Just sick. "

Gansey frowns. "And he just let you take his car?" 

"How often do I have to tell you that you don't know Lynch anymore?" Kavinsky asks, one side of his mouth pulled up into a lopsided smile and his eyebrows furled, like he can't quite understand Gansey's question. "I don't even mean to be an asshole right now, Dick. I know you and Lynch both have this fucking weird … honesty kink or whatever, so. I'm being honest." 

Halfway through Kavinsky's answer Gansey's breathing had become heavier, his Richard-Campbell-Gansey-III mask flaking off more and more with every word. Gansey grows rigid before he, all of a sudden, rolls his shoulders and juts his chin out. 

"I've known Ronan for years." 

The corners of Kavinsky's mouth twitch, and, in response to that, so do Adam's hands. "You know the parts of him he chose to let you know." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

In a flash, Cabeswater lunges out and Adam's vision blurs. Everything around him sounds muffled, like he's underwater, and he feels bilious green ivy snaking around his wrists and fingers. He knows that if he were to look at his hands now he wouldn't see anything but tan, slightly dry and freckled skin, but, just to be sure, he pushes his hands under his thighs and forces the world around him to stop spinning. Somewhere in the distance, there's a raven cawing and trees whispering. _Greywaren. Bring us the Greywaren._

Adam's eyes close, then open again, but he's not seeing anything — or at least he's not seeing anything he _should_ see, because he's suddenly in the middle of a forest, tongues of fire licking up the trees surrounding him, bickering flames that are pink and red and yellow and orange. In the middle of it all, there's a boy, kneeling just a few feet away from Adam with his head bowed and his shoulders tense. He isn't wearing a shirt — only a pair of dark grey jeans — and for a horrible moment Adam thinks that the black covering most of his back is burnt flesh. When the boy looks up though, he's staring into the brilliant blue eyes of Ronan Lynch, abrasive and aloof as ever, but his cheeks are flushed, his nostrils flared, and his muscles strained. 

 _Greywaren_ , the trees whisper again, and when Adam looks up, it's to see a raven flying towards him, quick as lightening and jetblack, its beak open as it's letting out an ear-shattering, never-ending screech. It doesn't slow down, not even when it's only a few inches away from him, and Adam, bracing for impact, squinches his eyes shut. 

However, the impact doesn't come, and when Adam opens his eyes again — his heart hammering against his ribcage and his breathing way too fast — he's back in the booth at Nino's, Gansey by his side with his hands tight around Adam's arms and Kavinsky wide-eyed across from him.  

" _Fuck_ ," he hears Kavinsky mumble. "What— what the hell was that?"

"Adam, are you okay? What's going on?" 

Adam scans the restaurant hectically, praying that nobody has noticed something strange happening. Thankfully the only person who seems concerned is Blue; staring at him from behind the counter, worrying her bottom lip and holding a glass and a dishtowel, stock-still. 

Adam averts his eyes from her shoot Kavinsky a frosty look. Cold sweat prickles down his neck. Something's wrong. Something's really fucking wrong. Adam is so agitated that when he speaks, he forgets to clip his Henrietta accent. "What is _really_ going on with Lynch?" 

"Ronan? What?" Gansey asks, voice quiet but frantic, "What does he have to do with anything?"

Kavinsky leans back against the booth, his jaw working for a moment before he replies, "I fucking told you he's sick."

Adam leans over the table again, reaching out to curl his hand around Kavinsky's lower arm and pulls him forward until their faces are merely inches apart. Up close, Adam can see just how tired he really looks, how red-rimmed and deep-set his eyes are, how the skin around his nostrils is a dead giveaway that there still isn't a dwindling of his interest in cocaine.

"You gonna hit me, Parrish? Try one of your dad's tricks, maybe?" 

Adam's blood turns into ice, but he loosens his grip nonetheless. "Fuck you." 

"Adam," Gansey says, voice calm and regal, albeit his façade is betrayed by his fast breathing. "What's wrong with Ronan?"

"I saw him in Cabeswater," Adam answers, not moving away from Kavinsky, who doesn't move away either but snarls at him in response. And doesn't ask what Cabeswater is. Gansey knits his brows while Adam keeps staring at Kavinsky.

"How do you know about Cabeswater?" Gansey asks.

"I told you Lynch hasn't fucking told you everything about him. Let go of me." That last part is directed at Adam and said as Kavinsky's already pulling away and is now busy examining the barely visible red marks on his skin with a sneer on his face. Adam feels bad about it for two seconds. "If you were trying to get yourself a new dog, Dick, then maybe you should've chosen someone with a bit more bite. The last one was good." 

Gansey breathes out. "I want to see him."

" _I_ want to know what the fuck is wrong with Parrish." 

Adam swallows around the lump in his throat. "Let Gansey see him, and maybe I'll tell you." 

" _Maybe_ isn't good enough, poor boy."

"That's too bad because that's all I'm—"

"Okay," Gansey interrupts, placing both of his hands flat on the table surface. "Okay." 

There's a smile in Kavinsky's eyes as he drinks the rest of his coke in one go.

 

* * * *

 

"Proko, where's Lynch?" Kavinsky asks as soon as the front door to his mansion clicks shut behind them. Prokopenko, who is rummaging around the kitchen with a joint between his lips — there's soft pink smoke coming out of his mouth and dancing in the air around him — and a half-eaten Snickers bar in one of his hands, smiles when he hears Kavinsky's voice. Although his smile dies rather quickly when he spots Gansey and Adam standing rather awkwardly (well, Adam is the only awkward one; Gansey looks like his father had just bought the estate and sent him to kick the occupants out in the fake-smile, bone-crushing-handshake kind of way rich people have) in the hallway behind Kavinsky.

Proko blinks. "Um. Hello?" 

"Hey," — Kavinsky snaps his fingers — "where is Lynch?" 

Proko's mint green eyes flicker from Gansey and Adam over to Kavinsky so slowly that Adam is pretty sure he's had more than one joint today. He's wearing a Spider-Man T-shirt that looks like somewhen someone has washed it with too hot water, causing it to shrink and, when worn, expose a bit of his toned stomach. Adam is quite positive that the slightly reddened skin on his hipbone is a fading hickey. "Uh. Shit, I don't know. Upstairs, I guess. Pretty sure he's with Skov." 

"What's Skov doing here?" Kavinsky asks, leaning over to see if there are any more slices of pizza in the box on the kitchen island before grabbing one and taking a bite. There is a string of melted cheese connecting his mouth and the slice, and, lifting his free hand, Kavinsky wraps it around his finger to put it in his mouth. Proko watches with great interest, his eyes lighting up and lips stretching into a blithe smile. 

"Ronan's been asleep all day. I think he's—" he pauses to glance at Adam and Gansey, then says, "—checking on him. You know. 'Cause he's sick and stuff." 

"We know he's not really sick," Gansey says with a polite nod of acknowledgement in Proko's direction, which makes Proko smile again. "I see Ronan's still having trouble sleeping?" 

For some reason, Kavinsky snorts. "Yeah, man. Something like that." 

Gansey squares his shoulders, a frown on his face, but his blinking's slow. He looks at once like the both versions of Gansey; the one bent over the open hood of the Pig with stains on his Polo Ralph Lauren shirts and the one strutting down the halls of Aglionby, greeting his friends and fellow students with an easy smile and an even easier hand gesture. "Could you please stop being so fucking arrogant and just tell us what's going on?" 

Proko's face contorts with a mix of confusion and suspicion. "K?" 

Before Kavinsky can wise him up, Adam hears footsteps coming down the glass stairs, and then Ronan Lynch is standing in front of them, wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a loose, black vest with dropped armholes that does a poor job of hiding both his lean muscles and his huge tattoo underneath it. His eyes are narrowed, blue flashing behind long lashes, as they take in the scene in front of him; Gansey, sun-kissed and regal as ever, and Adam by his side, a fading bruise on his cheekbone and dirt under his fingernails.

Ronan arches one of his eyebrows as his body grows stiff, poised to attack if necessary.  

"What the fuck is going on here?" he asks, pushing the words through his clenched pearly white teeth, cutting them into sharp things meant to hurt. Gansey, however, hardly reacts; all he does is let out a deep breath while his shoulders sag with relief and he takes a step forward — closer to Ronan, further away from Adam. Adam tries to curb the thoughts flashing through his mind as a result: his own voice whispering to him, painting a picture of Adam, lonely once more, wearing some Henrietta-based factory's bluey and sitting on a plastic chair in front of his parents' trailer with twigs tight around his ankles and wrists, the Pig's taillights barely visible through thick clouds of raised dust as it races away.

Gansey's voice jolts him out of his thoughts, strong and pleasant as always. "How are you? You look rather unwell."

If the complete bewilderment on Ronan's face is anything to go by, this was not the answer he'd expected. Just as he's about to say something else, Skov jumps down the last two stairs, followed by Swan and Jiang, his pale blue hair a mess. Upon seeing Gansey and Adam, Skov barks out a laugh and steps forward to clap Adam on his shoulder, his eyes full of mirth.

"Parrish! And hey, Gansey. Congrats on winning that rowing race." 

Gansey looks surprised. "I didn't know you were into rowing." 

"I'm not," he smirks as he puts his hands on the kitchen island and pushes himself up until he's sitting on its marble surface, pulling Swan (who relaxes immediately and holds his hand out for Proko to pass him the joint) between his legs and wrapping an arm around his chest from behind. He gives Gansey an appreciative once-over before turning his head and propping it up on Swan's shoulder.

Gansey gives a single slow nod. "Ah." 

Jiang, who has flopped down into one of the leathern bar stools around the island, considers Adam and Gansey with half a pizza slice in his mouth. Somehow he manages to look both blasé and genial at the same time, and once again, Adam feels uneasy in his presence. Out of all of them, he's probably the least trustworthy one; Kavinsky is unpredictable and definitely not all there, but at least he'll let you know if he doesn't like you; with Lynch, you can just assume he doesn't like you — in case the glares and sneers he fixes ninety-nine percent of the people around him with aren't broad hints already; Proko seems harmless enough, especially if Kavinsky isn't around; Skov and Swan probably wouldn't _start_ any drama on their own, which doesn't mean that they'd back away if they got caught up in it. Jiang, on the other hand, seems to be most calculating one of the bunch. Adam trusts him from the wall to the wallpaper.

"What brings you here?" Jiang asks around a mouth full of pizza. His eyes snag on Adam. "Lynch?"

Adam, clocking the quip but unwilling to bite, nods. "Yes, actually." 

Somewhere to his left, he hears Skov chuckle and Swan groan quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Swan's fingers curl around Skov's arm as he leans closer to Prokopenko. "Proko, d'you have any more Snickers bars?" 

"Nah, sorry. Got some Oreos, though. Want them?" 

And then Swan, murmuring: "An actual sugar daddy."

Gansey sighs, long and tired, and takes another step closer to Ronan. "What's up with you?" 

"Nothing's fucking up with me, Gansey. You and Parrish wasted gas driving here."

Kavinsky cocks his head, an emotion Adam can't quite make out flickering in his eyes as he fixes them on Ronan. Every inch of his body is relaxed and there's a quirk to one corner of his mouth. Nothing about his body language indicates anything other than perfect ease. 

"He knows," Kavinsky says. 

Ronan turns to look at him, jaw set and eyes flashing. When he speaks, his tone is oddly flat. "What." 

"Parrish was freaky as fuck"— Kavinsky barks out a short laugh —" _again_. And I told them you spent the night bent over my damn toilet." 

Adam feels his neck and the tips of his ears burn, but bites down the fury that turns his stomach in knots and burns in his lungs. He's so sick of Kavinsky and his friends, sick of the frustratingly hopeful look on Gansey's face, sick of not knowing what's really going on. 

"We're not stupid," he counters, feeling everyone's eyes boring into him. "You"— he scowls at Kavinsky —"said you'd tell us what the hell's going on. So do it." 

Without hesitation but with a broad smile, Kavinsky looks at Ronan. "They know about Cabeswater." 

And Ronan's face goes ashen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for all the comments and kudos so far! they're all super nice and motivating! 
> 
> i tried to make this chapter a little more exciting though the exciting part, i hope, comes after it now that all the introductions and so on are out of the way. i'm very sorry about the lack of blue and noah in this chapter, btw. they'll of course play a bigger role in the following chapters again.
> 
> please let me know if you liked it (or didn't!) :)
> 
> (also i didn't have the time to proof-read this chapter — which i usually do bc i'm german and still learning — but i did want to post it since i won't be able to later today, so there might be grammar/spelling mistakes. if you find any, please let me know. thanks!!)
> 
> ((oh, and if u want to come chat with me, find me on tumblr: n0ahc))


	6. six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slow start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, it's only been a little over a year so i'm sure there are still super many people interested in this fic (seriously, i hope there are, i'm sorry) 
> 
> thanks for all the nice words you sent my way during that time! this chapter might be a little slow but now is where the plot is really just starting soooo i hope it's okay <3 
> 
> ( as always unbeta'd and i'm still a native german speaker, so in case there are any grammar/spelling mistakes, do point them out to me please ;) )

Adam isn't the most peaceful sleeper, so there aren't many nights he spent dreaming. Most of the dreams he can remember having are of him in different scenarios, almost all of them unpleasant and strange, but never as unpleasant and strange as the scenario he's finding himself in right now; sitting next to Gansey on a couch in Kavinsky's ultra modern and ultra impersonal mansion with Kavinsky and his friends sitting on the couches and armchairs opposite of them.

Adam has been at Kavinsky's before, just never in the daytime. Now that there's more light than just the occasional disorienting flickering of blinding strobe lights, he can actually see what's special enough about this house that keeps students talking in the halls of Aglionby.

It's huge, like Gansey's family home, except that this house's hugeness seems suffocating. It's an endless maze of white walls that are free of any sort of decoration apart from undoubtedly cripplingly expensive but soulless pieces of abstract art here and there. All the furniture is designer, modern and uncomfortable, meant to be looked at more than to be used. There are pale neon lights casting different rooms in shades of sky blue, bubblegum pink and soft lilac. Adam doesn't see any family pictures — no sign that this house is actually lived in instead of a model home out of Architectural Digest — but there are a couple magazines on the coffee table that promise articles on luxury cars and expensive homes in California, others show pictures of half-naked women lying in rumpled beds or on the hoods of bright red Ferraris.

It's all a dizzying mix between tasteful and tasteless, although the dizziness might also be caused by the smell of marihuana and cheap Chinese takeout lingering in the air.

"Anyone wanna—?" Proko asks, offering his joint by waving it around. Really there's only a stub left but it's still steadily emitting smoke that's changing color every few moments on its way to the ceiling. It's not the strangest thing Adam's ever seen, but it's up there.

"Uh, no, thank you," Gansey says, eyebrows drawn together.

Ronan, who is sitting next to Skov and opposite Adam and Gansey, keeps glaring at the wall behind them with his feet propped up on the coffee table and his arms crossed in front of his chest. Slouching on the armrest on Ronan's other side is Kavinsky, who hasn't stopped grinning once. He slaps Ronan's bicep with the back of his hand.

"Come on, princess, don't be shy. Tell them what they wanna know."

The ice in Ronan's light blue eyes grows colder. "Fuck off."

Gansey's face twists. "I— look, Ronan, I'm sorry we've come here unannounced but I'm worried about you."

Ronan's eyes flicker from the wall over to Gansey, over to Adam, back to Gansey and then, again, to Adam. He takes in Adam's clothes, the frayed fabric of his once-white Converse, the soft blue denim of his jeans, the bit of oil that has once seeped into his white T-shirt and refused to wash out since. Ronan has seen the bruises on his arms, Adam's sure, but he doesn't say anything about them, only scowls. Adam doesn't flinch at the hostility in Ronan's gaze when it meets his; he matches it with a coolness of his own. Kavinsky gives a long-suffering sigh.

"How embarrassing. Forgive his manners. The previous owner didn't train him very well.” He leans closer to Ronan and points at his face. “Ronan, talk."

"Fuck you," Ronan snaps, which makes Skov snicker and Swan roll his eyes.

"I thought we were over the fun part," Adam says drily.

"I thought the fun part was only just beginning," Kavinsky purrs. He lifts a hand to rub it over Ronan's shaved head. Proko's eyes follow the movement. Adam watches him, sees the jealousy burning hidden behind layers and layers of his high, and catalogues it.

"Please let's keep this civil," Gansey tries, voice a little strained from watching Ronan and Kavinsky interact, and leans forward until his elbows are supported on his knees with his hands clasped. "We don't want to start any drama. All we want is to know what's going on with you, Ronan. Like I said, I'm worried. Kavinsky said you weren't feeling well and—"

"It's really nothing, Dick."

Gansey's gaze very obviously flits over the dark skin under Ronan's eyes, the too tense line of his shoulders, the defiant jut of his jaw. "You don't look like whatever you're dealing with is nothing."

Kavinsky looks at Ronan from the corner of his eye. He's still grinning. It's unsettling.

Ronan leans against the couch's backrest, lifts his hand to bring his wristbands to his mouth and starts chewing on them. With the leather between his front teeth, he says, "I don't owe you any explanations. I don't even know what the fuck you're doing here."

"We want to help," Gansey stresses.

"Come on, 'we'? Shit, I don't even know Parrish."

"He pluralized to be polite," Adam says coolly. "I'm here for Gansey."

Ronan glare flicks over to him, tilting his head. A bit of the ice in his eyes melts away, just a little, just to make room for another emotion Adam can't quite make out. "That's very noble of you."

"Noah worries, too," Gansey continues, as if Adam and Ronan hadn't spoken. Probably because he hadn't liked what Adam and Ronan had to say.

"Who the hell is Noah?" Jiang asks, turning to Ronan, who ignores him in favor of glaring at Gansey. Adam watches Ronan's jaw work, his shoulders slouch just the tiniest bit, his blunt nails digging into the curve of his biceps.

"A good friend of Ronan's," Gansey explains without taking his eyes off Ronan. He's always been good at guilt-tripping. Or, manipulating.

"Gans, seriously, stay out of it," Ronan mumbles, only half-manipulated.

Kavinsky leans down, closer to him. One of his hands curls around Ronan's neck, his thumb pressing against his sharp jawline to tilt his face and make him look back at him. "He's a big boy, Ro. Tell him. Don't be a buzzkill." He turns Ronan's head again, forcing Adam into his line of sight. "Poor boy here is hiding something too, I believe. Remember what I said last week, babe? He went real freaky at our little date earlier. Don't worry, not the kind of freaky we—"

"What?" Ronan interrupts. 

"Oh, yeah. Faraway eyes, tense all over, unresponsive. All that fun stuff."

Ronan stares at Adam. Adam, refusing to let anyone — especially Ronan — see his unease, stares right back, trying to ignore the wariness slowly creeping up his throat, clogging it. He feels Cabeswater reach out to him, hears it whisper in his deaf ear, too frantic and tumultuous to make out any of the words. There's blackness closing in on his vision, dark spots dancing at the corners of his eyes, but Adam takes deep breaths, forcing himself to stay present, trying to keep Cabeswater at bay.

All of this happens in the blink of an eye, but apparently that's enough for Ronan to piece together what's happening.

"You fucking idiot," he says, voice flat.

Kavinsky laughs, bright eyes now focused on Gansey. "See, Dickie? Progress!"

"What are you talking about?" Gansey asks, question directed at Ronan.

"Oh, don't worry, they're just trading secrets. Bonding. Heartwarming, isn't it?"

Kavinsky keeps blabbering, which makes Gansey grow increasingly irritated, but their voices turn into mere background noise as all Adam can focus on is Ronan, glaring at him from across the coffee table with his muscles tense and his eyes hard.

"What the fuck did you do."

"I had to," Adam argues, willing his voice to stay calm, so he keeps taking deep breaths and digs his nails into the cushions of the couch.

Ronan's mouth twitches into a smile. It's not very friendly. Not that everything about him ever is. "You had to? Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Look, we know Cabeswater is—"

"It's fucking dangerous, you piece of shit."

"It's magic," Gansey says. "We are aware that—"

"That what, Dick?" Ronan spits, looking away from Adam to glare at Gansey. Adam breathes in, feels a million pounds lighter. "That there's something seriously fucking wrong with it?"

Adam speaks up again, his voice quiet, "Your raven keeps showing up there. I saw _you_ there."

Kavinsky keeps looking between them, thousand watt smile plastered on his face. Adam doesn't know if he's somehow suddenly coked out or just enjoying the tension.

"You were— there were flames. It was all burning down. We knew something's wrong with it. Now we know you— you have some sort of connection with it, so—"

"Some sort of connection," Swan quips. He sounds amused.

"Britney here has a few secrets he hasn't told you," Kavinsky says, running the tips of his fingers over Ronan's shaved head. "See, Dick. I'm not always lying. Always assuming the worst. Anyway, after that very tragic day a few years ago and Lynch's meltdown we had a little conversation. I've known what he was way before that, what he was capable of. You see, we're the same, him and I." Adam watches as Kavinsky's hand curls around Ronan's wrist, his fingers hooking underneath one of the leather bands there.

"Okay, fascinating," Adam drawls. "Does that explain why Ronan knows about my pact with Cabeswater?"

Ronan barks a laugh. "Your what? You made a _sacrifice_ , Parrish, not a pact."

"If you know what I did, I'm sure you know why I did it."

Ronan doesn't say anything to that, for which Adam is thankful; he's really not in the mood to discuss Gansey's death with a bunch of unsympathetic strangers. Or anyone, really. Ever.

"So what does that mean? That shit about you and Ronan being the same," Adam asks.

Ronan's eyes — half panicked, half aggressive, a vicious blue — narrow.

"Do you want to do the honors?" Kavinsky asks. They're all watching them.

"I dreamed Cabeswater," Ronan says.

Adam stares at him. Gansey stiffens. There's a moment of complete silence — apart from Jiang's phone making weird noises when he plays a video on it; Adam's pretty sure he hears a car crash — before Ronan rolls his eyes and rubs a hand over his face.

"I can pull things from my dreams. Cabeswater's— it's one of those things. So's Chainsaw."

"Chainsaw?" Gansey asks.

"His raven," Skov clarifies.

Gansey runs his fingers through his hair. He looks careful, but also like he really _wants_ to believe Ronan's telling the truth. His eyes are already glittering with the promise of adventure and magic, and he's lifting his hand to press his thumb to his bottom lip. It's very Gansey.

Adam's skeptical, because he's literally given his eyes and hands to a forest, a magical entity, so while Ronan's confession is strange, it's not _strange_. He's not entirely convinced yet that they're not being fucked with though. This is probably very Adam.

Gansey shuffles until he's sitting on the edge of the cushions, gaze fixed on Ronan. "Alright, um. So. How does that work?"

Ronan blinks. "I don't fucking know. I dream, I think about it, I wake up, I have it."

"And you're both—" Gansey looks between Ronan and Kavinsky "—capable of that?"

"Jealous?" Kavinsky asks.

Adam ignores him. "How do we know you're not fucking with us?"

"You've made a sacrifice to a magical forest, Parrish," Ronan says.

"I didn't say I don't believe in magic. I'm just not sure if you have anything to do with it. Maybe you're just talking shit because of all the drugs you—"

"I don't lie."

Adam presses his lips together. He turns his head to look at Gansey, who's rubbing his hands together as if he's cold and looks back at Adam, tilts his head: _I believe him_. Adam exhales.

"Can we go see it?" Gansey asks, then pulls himself together and looks at all the boys in Kavinsky's living room. "I mean, will you come?"

 

* * *

 

Blue meets them in Cabeswater. She's waiting with her hands on her hips and her lips pursed. Today she's wearing a lipstick so dark Adam isn't sure if it's blue, red, purple, green or what. With her, it could be anything, the color maybe even achieved by applying so many coats of different lipsticks that it becomes … that. Not that it looks bad. It goes well with her high waisted pale green skirt and the long-sleeved white turtleneck.

Next to him, Gansey sighs dreamily, which jolts Adam out of his thoughts and makes him shake his head and look away.

"Seriously?" Blue hisses once Adam and Gansey are close enough. They'd driven here separately. "Why didn't you call me? I'd have come. Was it okay? Were they being assholes?"

"No more than usual," Gansey says. He ducks his head, presses the tip of his nose to Blue's temple. "Hi, Jane."

Blue rolls her eyes, but there's color rising in her cheeks. She looks over at Adam. " _Have_ they been assholes?"

"Just arrogant." He bumps his fist against the fist she holds out to him. It's true what they about couples adopting each other's mannerisms, apparently. He makes himself grin at her.

"Huh," Blue says. "Noah didn't show up. I don't know where he is." She reaches out to clasp Gansey's hand, intertwining her fingers with his. It's a little comical how half her hand seems to disappear.

Adam digs his teeth into his bottom lip. Gansey looks at him.

"You think this might have something to do with whatever's wrong with Cabeswater?"

Adam is very suddenly very tired. He presses his palms against his eyes. There's a headache coming up, already throbbing in his temples and behind his ears.

"Having another episode?" Kavinsky asks. Adam drops his hands. Blinks. They're all already talking to each other — apart from Ronan, who's just standing in the background with a scowl on his face — and, from the looks of it (the exasperation on Blue's face as she listens to whatever Skov's telling her and the way Gansey keeps glancing hopefully to Ronan over Swan's shoulder) they have been for a while. Adam wonders for how long he's been standing there, not hearing and noticing anything.

Adam just rolls his eyes at Kavinsky and walks around him to Ronan. When Ronan realizes Adam's coming his way, he lifts his chin and squares his shoulders, which makes Adam roll his eyes again.

"Calm down," Adam says.

"Go away," Ronan retorts.

"Stop avoiding Gansey."

"More orders? This is a fun game."

"Look, I can't stand you," Adam starts, only to be interrupted a moment later.

"So we _do_ have something in common."

"We both don't like you?"

Ronan lifts one shoulder, then lets it fall again. It's hardly enough movement to be called a shrug.

"We have something in common, though. You care about Gansey, so fucking act like it. I don't know what your deal is, or what he's done to make you cut him out of your life, but get—" Adam stops, because suddenly Ronan is very close and although Adam tries hard not to be intimidated, he is. Ronan's only an inch or so taller, but he's more muscular and he can afford to eat anything else other than pasta and bread, so he's definitely fitter, too. Adam doesn't fight, doesn't know _how_ to fight, and Ronan keeps getting into brawls that Adam keeps having to listen to Gansey worry about.

So he can't help it when he flinches. He also can't help the widening of his eyes when Ronan unexpectedly takes a step back, looking … _something_. Adam doesn't know what emotion it is tugging on Ronan's handsome features. He knows what it's _not_ , and that's pity, which is good because that's his least favorite reaction.

"You've got a fucking magical forest under your control," Ronan says, stepping back a little further. He's watching Adam through narrowed eyes and long lashes while shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. "Use it." And then he's turning away, and Adam can breathe freely again.

This peace only lasts for a few moments, though. There's Blue's hand on his forearm not even a minute later, tugging at him lightly.

"You okay?"

"'Course."

"Hard to imagine him and Gansey being friends, huh?"

Adam looks down at her as they start following the others down a path and deeper into the forest. "You think?"

"I don't know what to think," she mumbles, biting her cheek. "I think they're all assholes and I'm worried Gansey's going to get his heart crushed again. Am I being stupid?"

"No. Has— has Gansey told you about Ronan and Kavinsky?"

"He texted me. Have you seen them do it? Dream, I mean. Take things, um, out of their dreams?"

Adam shakes his head.

"You believe them?"

"Yeah."

"Me too. God, what does that say about us? Are we crazy? Maybe this is all an entire— I don't know. Have you seen The Truman Show? Maybe it's something like that."

"If we're actors I want another role. And a paycheck."

"I want a few of the other actors fired," Blue says, grinning up at him.

 

* * *

 

It takes them another half hour until they're finally there. _There_ doesn't seem to really be a place. Ronan just stops suddenly, looking very annoyed and pissed off, and sits down on a log in the shade. It's not a hot day, but Ronan's very pale, and Adam can already see a bit of red tinting the bridge of his nose. He watches as Ronan closes his eyes and tilts his head back, baring his throat and fuck, Adam has never thought of throats as a particularly attractive body part, but.

Adam looks away. He's still only wearing his T-shirt, so he's starting to freeze a little now that it's nearing late afternoon. There's a breeze hitting the back of his neck, making goosebumps erupt on his skin. He hears leaves rustling and Cabeswater whispering, and it doesn't really have a _voice_ like humans do, but it sounds happy. The trees move, making way for the sun to shine through, and suddenly it's warm.

Adam catches Ronan shoot him a look before he's rolling his eyes and shrugging out of his jacket.

"That was creepy as hell," Skov says, but he looks impressed.

Adam, still feeling Ronan's heavy gaze on him, turns away. "Do we know what's wrong with Cabeswater?"

"Yes," Jiang says. "Someone's messing with it."

"I don't know if I can process that much information at once," Adam retorts. He isn't a hundred percent sure, but he thinks it's Ronan he hears snort.

"You know, Gansey," Kavinsky pipes up, "I think I get it more and more."

Blue glares at him. Kavinsky winks at her.

"Someone's using something to try to get access to Cabeswater," Ronan says. "It's draining the ley line. That's all we know."

Kavinsky shrugs. "For all we know it might be Poor Boy's dad trying to get alcohol he doesn't have to pay for."

"Oh, that was funny," Adam says, turning to look at him. "Maybe it's yours on his second try to kill you."

Kavinsky's mouth opens into a wide smile. It's not even really a warning, but it's the only one he gets before Kavinsky's suddenly right in front of him, one hand pulled back and curled into a fist.

_Greywaren._

_Use it._

Adam feels his fingers tingle with possibility. He closes his eyes. There are green dots growing behind his eyelids until all he can see is green, and then all he can see are leaves, and then all he can see are branches, moving branches, twisting branches, and then all he can hear is a crunch as they stop moving and grow firm and immobile.

When he opens his eyes again, Kavinsky's in the same position as he was when Adam had closed his eyes. There are branches tight around his wrists and ankles, holding him in place. He's breathing hard, face contorted with surprise and for a moment he looks furious. And then he laughs, loud and wild and a little lunatic.

"Oh," he says. " _Oh_ , Parrish."

Out of the corner of his eye Adam sees Blue and Gansey and all the others stare at him. He turns to look at Ronan, who is still sitting on that log, fumbling with his wristbands and meeting his eyes with a sparkle in his own. One corner of his mouth twitches, and that's enough for Adam.

He tells Cabeswater to let Kavinsky go, and it does.


End file.
